


The Mavigon Solution

by Scutter



Series: A Most Unexpected Man [3]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alpha/Omega, Coming Out, Discussion of social conventions, Knotting, M/M, Omega Verse, Sex, post-ME3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-24
Updated: 2013-07-27
Packaged: 2017-12-21 04:28:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 35,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/895818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scutter/pseuds/Scutter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The third part in my ‘Unexpected Man’ omegaverse series. The reaper war is over, Earth is rebuilding, and Shepard and Kaidan try to come to terms with their respective sexualities. But a new crisis dawns on the horizon. The manufacturer of the omegas’ hormonal suppressants has been destroyed in the war, and now, thousands of omegas the world over are about to go into heat.<br/>(It’s actually a lot less smutty than it sounds – no massive group orgies or anything, just Shepard and Kaidan trying to save the world… in a different kind of way, this time.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic delves a lot more into the social and psychological side of the alpha/ omega culture in this AU. This is what happens when you lie awake for hours at night contemplating the lives of imaginary people.  
> If you don’t know what Omegaverse is, you should probably read the other fics in this series first, or at the very least google ‘omegaverse’ before you read this, because I won’t be explaining a whole lot of it here.

**Prologue – Coming Home**

Kaidan hoisted the limp body in his arms onto the stretcher. The medic grabbed the handles and took off at a dead run towards the surgery theatre, almost before he had let go of the woman, and he had to grab onto the wall to stop himself from stumbling.

Or maybe that was because he was light-headed, slogging his guts out for the past four days straight, on four or five hours sleep. And he hadn’t eaten since…

He frowned, trying to work out when it had been…

“Major!” Traynor scurried past, tossing a box of protein bars and a bottle of water at him, and he caught them deftly. 

“Thanks!”

Across the compound, he caught a glimpse of James, giving orders, organising the next delivery of medical supplies, while at the compound’s entrance, more casualties were being brought in. A shuttle landed on the pad, battered and dented, but still able to fly, and Cortez jumped out of the pilot’s seat, helping to unload the injured passengers.

It was nine days since the crucible had fired. Nine days since the war had been won, and ever since the Normandy had limped its way back into Earth space, it had been utter chaos, all hands on deck, search and rescue operations, doctors working around the clock, aliens helping to coordinate supplies and organise refugees… 

Knowing there was still more work to be done, Kaidan all but inhaled the bottle of water, feeling sweat dripping down his back, then tore open the first of the protein bars. They tasted like cardboard, but the calories would keep him on his feet for another few hours, at least. He was in desperate need of sleep, but it was so hard to take a break, so hard to give in to his body’s own demands when there were people still trapped under rubble, people sheltering in collapsing buildings, without food, without water, some of them not even aware that the war was over.

“If you don’t take a break, you’re going to pass out,” Chakwas scolded him, hurrying past with an armful of medigel. “And don’t think I’m pampering you. I just don’t want your unconscious body cluttering up the hallways.”

Okay, so she had a point. 

But if he was going to take a break, it was still possible to be doing something important at the same time. And fortunately, it was something he could do sitting down. Still clutching his box of protein bars, he headed for the intensive care unit. 

The ward was clogged with patients, beds lining the halls, people resting on mattresses on the bare floor, as the medical staff worked day and night to make sure as many people as possible survived. It wasn’t just injuries, now. There was also the risk of infection, of disease as people drank contaminated water out of pure desperation. The sewer lines had been damaged in some parts of the city, and the cold and hunger and lack of shelter was putting people’s immune systems at risk.

But there was one patient here who had been given his own, private room. The guard knew Kaidan by now, and stepped aside with a respectful nod. He headed inside, closing the door quietly behind him.

Inside, the noise and chaos of the hospital was muted, the relative quiet seeming almost peaceful, and he pulled a chair up to the bed, sitting down with a sigh that made him sound far older than he actually was.

The man on the bed was unconscious, bruises covering his entire body. Cuts had been stitched, bones set and internal bleeding operated on. 

But despite the potent evidence of brutality, this man was still the most beautiful thing Kaidan had ever seen, and, food still clutched in one hand, he reached out with the other, threading his fingers through the hand that rested on the bed.

“Hey, Shepard.”

 

**Chapter 1 – The Problem**

 

Five Months Later

 

“Commander.” Chakwas nodded to him as she passed him in the hallway. 

“Karin.” Shepard smiled back at her, not surprised to find she was in a rush to get somewhere. By now, months on from the end of the war, most of the patients had been discharged from the hospital. Earth was making a slow recovery, cities were being rebuilt… but no matter how much progress they made, Karin always managed to have a thousand things to do.

“I owe you a bottle of brandy,” he called cheerfully, before she was out of earshot. “We still haven’t celebrated the end of the war yet.”

But, to his surprise, Karin merely shook her head and kept going. “Sorry, Shepard, but I’m in the middle of a small crisis… Some other time!” And with that, she was gone.

And Shepard felt a frown settle onto his face as he watched her go. Odd. 

He made his way to the hospital’s reception desk. All the staff knew him now – hell, they’d probably know who he was even if he hadn’t spent months recovering here, in and out of surgery, spending hours at a time in the physiotherapy ward, but at least this way, they knew _him_ , not just his title and rank and the endless rumours about him. They knew he was a human being, not just a war hero, and Cathy, the girl at reception, greeted him with a wide smile. 

“Good morning, Commander. What can I do for you?”

“I just saw Dr. Chakwas heading somewhere in a hell of a hurry. Has anything serious gone wrong? Shortage of medical supplies? Shuttle crash?”

“I haven’t heard of anything, but I’ll check the system for you…” She rapidly tapped the keys on the terminal in front of her, then shook her head with a mystified look. “Sorry, Sir. Nothing’s showing up.”

“Hmm. Alright. Thanks anyway.” He headed for the door, filing the incident in the back of his mind. Maybe it was nothing… but his instincts were telling him something was wrong, and these things had a way of showing up in unexpected places.

Outside, the sun was shining, and he found a seat in the open to soak up its warmth as he waited for Kaidan to collect him. The cybernetic implants had allowed him to recover at a remarkable pace, but even so, there were still a few injuries that niggled at him. An aching knee joint. A shoulder that creaked and cracked when he lifted anything heavy. A cramp in his calf muscle that plagued him each and every night, no matter how much he stretched and massaged it before he went to bed. 

Officially, Kaidan was keeping an eye on him, Hackett not willing to trust Shepard not to overdo things. It was an amicable arrangement – Shepard saw it as his job to keep Kaidan from overworking himself just as much as Kaidan did the same for him, and it was nice to have someone to share his free time with. They’d been given a small apartment not far from the military compound, and the two-bedroom set up was working out well for them both. 

Officially, Kaidan slept in the larger room on the south of the building, while Shepard took the smaller room on the west. 

And unofficially, every few weeks, one of them would knock on the other’s door and they would have the world’s most mind-blowing sex.

They had never discussed their unconventional relationship, had never spouted effusive words of love, had never sought to define themselves as _lovers_ or _partners_. They admired and respected each other, they worked well together, and the arrangement worked – Shepard, an alpha, was allowed the rare and coveted gift of a regular sex life – in a world where the average alpha could expect to remain a virgin his entire life unless he took to kidnapping and raping omegas, and Kaidan, an omega, was able to enjoy the forbidden and taboo pleasure of being knotted by a discrete and civilised alpha.

Of course, if anyone ever found out about their most private of arrangements… Shepard tried not to think about how ugly it could get. For both of them. 

Kaidan’s career would be over, of course, his reputation in tatters. His family would likely disown him, and he would become the target of taunts and attacks from jealous and angry alphas. Shepard would be relieved of duty, court marshaled for taking advantage of a soldier under his command, and demoted to a quiet desk job somewhere out of the way.

But, for as long as they both managed to be discrete… perhaps it was naïve. Perhaps it was just overly optimistic. Or perhaps it was that both of them were tired of the irrational prejudices imposed upon them by a society that wouldn’t consider any other options. But however the odds stacked up, somehow they both considered it worth the risk.

And then, as Shepard waited in the open air, in the sun, his omni-tool beeped, and he glanced down to check the caller. Unknown number.

Odd…

Warily, Shepard answered the call. And was startled when a very familiar face popped up on the screen… though it was a face he hadn’t seen in getting on for ten years.

“David?”

“Where are you?” the man asked bluntly. “Somewhere private? I need to talk to you. Urgently. It’s… it’s a bit of a crisis, really.” And wasn’t this turning out to be a fun day. David, the omega who had originally taught him how to mate an omega without injuring them, had always been calm, cool and collected. One step ahead of the game, sharp as a razor, with a wit as quick as a lightning bolt. And he sounded… rattled.

“No, I’m outside a military hospital. Waiting to head home. I’ll be there in about ten minutes if you want me to call you back then?”

Shepard had expected a quick agreement, but David instead pursed his lips and looked put out. “That’ll have to do,” he said finally. Then, “Do you live alone?”

“No, I have a roommate.”

“Make sure he’s not around when you call me. It’s… a matter of some delicacy.”

And today was just getting stranger and stranger by the minute. “I’ll call you as soon as I can,” Shepard agreed. He hung up, just as Kaidan’s shuttle arrived at the landing pad, and he stood up to head over to his ride. 

Chakwas was having a crisis… and a man he hadn’t spoken to in years was suddenly contacting him with _urgent_ and _delicate_ matters. Whatever was looming on the horizon, it certainly couldn’t be good…


	2. The Crisis

As the water in the bathroom started running, signaling Kaidan getting into the shower, Shepard closed his bedroom door. He quickly tapped in the code to return David’s earlier call, and seconds later, the man’s face appeared. 

“You’re alone?” David asked without preamble. 

“Yeah, but I’ve only got a few minutes. What’s going on?”

“Fuck… alright, I’ll make this quick. But brace yourself. This is… bizarre and dreadful and… well, you’ll see. You’ve heard of Mitron Pharmaceuticals? “ He was just the same as Shepard remembered, speaking almost faster than a salarian, with that stiff British accent that made him sound like a pompous ass. Well, he was a pompous ass, really, but he had the brains to pull it off well.

“I’ve heard of them.”

“Right, of course. Well, you might also know that they manufacture 80% of the hormonal suppressants supplied to omegas. But what you probably don’t know is that just before the end of the war, two of their main factories were destroyed. They’ve been chewing through their stock piles of suppressants, trying to get the manufacturing up and running again, but with limited resources, and most of those being funneled into more urgent medical supplies – like antibiotics and synthetic blood – they’re running desperately short. And I can see from your face, Shepard, old chap, that you haven’t quite caught up with the implications of all this, so I’m just going to pause and let you think about that for a moment.”

There was a pause. “So lots of omegas are going to be running out of suppressants soon?” Shepard said slow, still not understanding what the crisis was. And then the penny dropped, and he gasped. Oh, hell, this was bad…

“And there it is,” David said, seeing his expression change. “You always were quick on the uptake-“

“Wait… why haven’t we heard about this on the news vids?”

“Think, Shepard! What kind of anarchy do you think there would be if every alpha in the world knew that almost every omega would be going into heat sometime in the next three months? And what do you think all the omegas would do? Panic, Shepard. Mayhem! In a world that’s barely holding itself together as it is!”

Shepard felt the blood drain from his face. No omega would be safe. Every single one of them would be a ripe target for rape… and even worse, with a mass-heat event like that, there was no way the legal system would ever manage to prosecute every alpha. They were far more likely to issue a temporary – or, god forbid, a permanent revision to the Self-Determination act, rewrite the definition of rape, and simply abandon the omegas to their fate.

“Fucking hell…”

“Right,” David agreed emphatically. “Shitsville, in a big way.”

“So what exactly do you want me to do about…” And then he figured it out. “Shit, do you… do you need help?” With his sort-of-relationship with Kaidan, mating with another omega was distinctly unappealing. But if David was running out of suppressants and was going to go through a heat, then, given their history, Shepard would feel obligated to help him through it. Hopefully Kaidan would understand-

“No, I’m fine,” David said with a laugh. A _laugh_ , damn the smug bastard. “I’ve… made arrangements.” Not a surprise, actually. There must be any number of willing alphas prepared to be discrete in exchange for 12 hours of unlimited sex, and David could be rather persuasive when he set his mind to it. Hell, maybe after Shepard had left Arcturus, David had simply replaced him, and already had a willing partner, trained and lined up, ready to go.

“Then what?”

“You’re still with the Alliance, right? Stationed on a base in London? Of course you are, you’re Commander Shepard. Everyone knows where you are. So think about this. There must be omegas stationed on your base. And alphas. Goodness knows how many, but they’d be there. How do you think the military is going to manage that? Sedate everyone? Lock them all up? What about the omegas? An unmated omega in heat goes through twelve hours of pure torture. Do you think the omegas are going to sit around and wait for that to happen? Or do you think they’re going to turn on each other, start stealing each others suppressants? Fights? And if an alpha gets loose, there’ll be rapes. Brutal ones. It’s a mess when civilians do it but if high ranking officers start in with that kind of business, it’s a public relations disaster, it ends careers, it causes riots… Anarchy, Shepard. Pure anarchy.”

“There aren’t many high ranking omegas,” Shepard objected. “They were only allowed into the military just on ten years ago, and most of them have been on restricted duty-“

“My point, Shepard,” David interrupted, “is this. The whole world is about to go to hell in a handbasket. And this time around, you probably can’t save them all.” David stopped, took a deep breath, let it out slowly. And when he spoke again, his tone was calm, firm, slow and clear. “But you can save your little corner of it.”

Another pause, no doubt to allow Shepard to wrap his head around that one. And he heard Kaidan getting out of the shower. But now that he knew what this crisis was all about, there was no need to keep it hidden from his roommate-cum-lover. He might even be able to help…

“So you’re saying you want me to…”

“You know what an omega needs to do to survive the mating. And I’d be lynched in the streets if anyone else heard me say this, but you and I both know that it’s not the alphas that are the problem. It’s the omegas. No one can train an alpha to be gentle. They just are the way they are. But you can train an omega to submit.”

“Submission involves a choice,” Shepard argued, not liking where this was going, even knowing David the way he did, even having been through three full heat cycles now.

“And I’m not denying that. But let’s put it in context. We all need to eat. We get a choice about the nature of the food, when we eat, how much, but ultimately, if we don’t eat, we die. So give the omegas a choice. They can choose which alpha they want. They can choose the timing, the location… hell, if they actually want to go through it alone, let them. But given the current situation, they can’t choose not to go through a heat, any more than you or I could choose to stop breathing. So you pull them aside, talk them through it, and teach them that willingly submitting to being mated is the best way to deal with it all.”

What David had just said was pure heresy, equivalent to saying that the Africans had deserved the centuries of slavery they had endured. “If I go to military command and tell them what you just told me, there would be riots in the streets within an hour.”

“So don’t tell military command. Find a doctor you trust. Just one. Tell that one person. Find an adventurous omega. Explain the situation. Train him or her. Go through the heat. And then, when it’s all over, go back to your doctor friend, the omega presents evidence that says it’s not such a horrendous idea after all, and hey presto, you have yourself a new medical protocol for dealing with dozens of omegas suddenly going into heat. And then you can talk a few trustworthy alphas through the process so they can share themselves around and you don’t have to do all the hard work yourself. Okay, so I’ve rather oversimplified the process there, but you’re a smart boy. You’ll figure it out.”

Something must have shown on his face, some hint of his quick realisation that that wouldn’t be necessary - Kaidan had already acted as the accidental guinea pig - or maybe a flash of his reluctance to mate with anyone other than Kaidan - because David’s shrewd eyes suddenly narrowed.

“Oh god!” David cried suddenly, delight lighting his face. “You’ve found yourself an omega!”

“David!”

“You have, haven’t you! Did you shack up with him, or just go through a heat together? Either way, doesn’t matter, but if he’s still around… He’s your roommate, isn’t he! Perfect solution. That makes it all a lot simpler. Just get _him_ to talk to the omegas. They’ll take it a lot better coming from one of their own.”

“DAVID!”

David instantly shut up, realising too late that he had crossed not just one, but a number of lines. “Sorry,” he apologised quickly. “I get a little… carried away.”

And then there was a knock at the door. “Shepard?” Kaidan sounded worried.

“I’m on a vidcall,” he called back, and the smug look on David’s face said the cat was well and truly out of the bag now. 

“Oh, my lips are sealed,” David said preemptively. “I might have high ideals when it comes to alpha-omega pairs, but we still live in this rather dingy, bigoted reality. I’m not about to out you.”

“I still don’t see how this plan is going to work-“

“Shepard,” David stopped him, his expression suddenly serious and grave, all trace of his usual flippancy gone. “I’m an omega. I’ve seen what happens to omegas and while I haven’t experienced it myself, I have imagined, in vivid, gory detail, what it would be like to go through a heat without a strong, trustworthy alpha at my side.” David’s very real fear bled through his expression, his lower lip quivering just slightly.

“There are omegas on your base who know nothing else but the brutality of the news vids, who don’t know that any other way is possible. They’re going to be absolutely terrified. Please, Shepard. Help them.” And thinking back to Kaidan’s stark terror at his own mating, Shepard admitted to himself that he had no choice. He knew at least two other people on the base – former crew of the Normandy – who were omegas. And it was likely that some of his other contacts and friends were as well. He couldn’t abandon them to the agony of a heat, whether that was though hours of pain alone, or hours of fear as an alpha brutalized them. Seeing Kaidan’s pain first hand had been… confronting.

“Alright,” he agreed softly. “I know a doctor I can talk to. I’ll work something out.”

“You’re a good man, Shepard,” David said, with something almost like affection in his voice. “Best of luck.” He ended the call.

 

 

Shepard sat for long minutes in silence, while he mulled everything over. This, he realised, was most likely the crisis Chakwas had been referring to. It was a dreadful position for her to be in, responsible for the safety and wellbeing of dozens of omegas, knowing supplies of suppressants were about to run out. Mitron Pharmaceuticals had done well to keep this out of the media so far, but certain personnel would have had to have been informed. Doctors. Breeding centers. And clearly a few omegas had gotten wind of it by now, as well.

And then a sudden thought had him bursting up off his bed, storming out of the room to find Kaidan.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” he demanded, startling his lover as he made coffee in the kitchen. 

“Tell you what?” He looked genuinely confused, but Shepard wasn’t buying it. 

“About the suppressants. You’ve been taking them for years. Chakwas must have told you. Even if you weren’t a Major, she’d tell you just as a friend.”

“Tell me what? Shepard, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

“How many do you have? How many months supply?”

“I don’t have any!” At Shepard’s look of pure alarm, he hastily explained himself further. “I went through a heat eight months ago. They only come once a year, so I don’t need to start taking suppressants again for another two or three months. I haven’t had any since we left Mavigon.”

Silence. He hadn’t thought of that…

“Shepard, what the hell is going on?”

“Fuck… I think you’re going to need to sit down…”

They sat, in the living room, and Shepard explained everything David had told him. The destruction of the factories, the dwindling supplies… and his outrageous plan to help the omegas within Shepard’s sphere of influence.

And to say that Kaidan was shocked was… a significant understatement.

“That’s insane,” he said flatly, his face pale. 

“Oh, you’ll get no argument from me there,” Shepard agreed. “But the facts remain the same. In the next few months, thousands of omegas are going to go through a heat with little to no idea how to handle it. So my question is, can you come up with a better plan for how to help them?”

A number of ideas had already come to Shepard’s mind as he had mulled this over, all of them ultimately dismissed. Pain relief had a minimal effect on the heat cycle, so drugs were out. Sedating the alphas was also possible, as they did in the breeding centers, but as David had pointed out – and Shepard had experienced first hand – the average omega was terrified of a mating. If Kaidan had simply been presented with a sedated alpha, he wouldn’t have had a clue what to do, and it was unlikely any other inexperienced omega would be any different.

Full anaesthesia had the bizarre effect of simply cutting the heat off, but then it would resume full force once the anaesthetic wore off.

And he watched as Kaidan’s mind raced, watched his changing expressions, from concentration, to confusion, to despair, as he inevitably reached the same conclusion.

“Shit,” he said finally. “Oh, shit, what a fucking mess…”

Cringing at the pain on his lover’s face, Shepard reached out and took his hand. Stroked his thumb over the back of it soothingly.

“I don’t see any other option,” Kaidan said finally, “but it’s still not going to work.”

“Why not?”

Kaidan looked up into his eyes, sudden heat combined with an odd vulnerability. “Back on Mavigon, when you suggested mating with me… I didn’t really believe you were going to be gentle. I didn’t believe it was possible. The only reason I agreed is because I’ve walked through fire with you enough times that I’ve come to believe in miracles. And that you have a strange knack for delivering them. But if it had been anyone else, I would have refused, point blank, regardless of the consequences. So you can’t just tell an omega to submit, stick them in a room with an alpha and expect things to work out. I know I’m oversimplifying it,” he went on, when Shepard went to protest, ”but you said yourself, when we were together, that the omega has to be willing – not just willing, but able to convince a savvy alpha that he wants to be there. I could barely manage to do that with you, and I trusted you with my life. How are you going to make that happen with people who barely know each other from a bar of soap?”

Shepard thought about that, chin resting on his hands, ideas forming rapidly, being sorted, reorganized, reassembled in a new order, in a mind that was a master at strategic planning. And then, a few minutes later, he lifted his head again.

“Okay, hypothetical question,” he said at last. “Assuming that it is possible to adequately prepare and train the omegas to accept the mating, do you have any other objections to the idea? On moral grounds? On a human rights basis? Because of the social consequences?”

“It’s unconventional,” Kaidan replied after a moment. “And there are plenty of people who would see it as highly derogatory and indecent. But I think most of those people aren’t going to be the ones facing twelve hours of raw agony. So, if we can keep the whole thing quiet – Chakwas should be able to keep things under wraps, smother everything in red tape, isolate a wing of the hospital for private use… then yes, I think it’s the best option for the omegas.”

“Okay… so then the problem is not so much a physical one as a psychological one, right? It’s about getting the omegas to understand that what is happening is in their best interests and is being done with care and respect.”

“Right.”

He could tell from Kaidan’s tone that he still didn’t see where Shepard was going with this. “When we were together, you needed to know me, to trust me, because we had all of two hours notice. But the omegas aren’t going to run out of suppressants tomorrow. Most of them still have a few weeks supply. So, we find some suitable alphas – men of good character, with good service records – and we introduce them to each other – not in the context of ‘here, now leap into bed’, but we give them time to get to know each other. A week of planning, plenty of time to ask questions, discuss things, spend time together. That should make it a lot easier to accept.”

“The alphas would need to be trained, too,” Kaidan jumped in, getting the hang of Shepard’s idea. “I know David says you can’t train an alpha, but the omegas would feel a hell of a lot more confident if they thought the alphas were being drilled just as much as they were. And they’ll need safe, secluded rooms. Comfortable rooms. That are scent-proof.” 

Shepard activated his omni-tool and started making rapid notes. When he’d woken up this morning, he’d thought he was in for a physiotherapy session and a quiet evening. Instead, he was now plotting the sexual interludes of a dozen omegas and planning how to turn vast social conventions on their heads.

And then Kaidan said something that shocked the hell out of him.

“How about I put together the training for the omegas? I know you prepared me as best you could, on Mavigon, but… there are things they really need to hear from an omega’s perspective.”

“Yes, excellent idea-“ Shepard stopped dead. “No. No way in hell. There’s no way I’m letting you out yourself to the entire base.”

“Every other omega on the base is about to be outed,” Kaidan said, the strain showing in his voice. “And you only need one leak, one indiscretion, whether it’s from the hospital staff, or one of the alphas, and they’re all screwed. Why should I be any different?”

“Because they’re having to go through this as an emergency medical procedure,” Shepard explained, trying to contain his fear at Kaidan being put at risk. “But you and I are living together. It wouldn’t take very long for people to put two and two together, and an omega willingly shacking up with an alpha is a very, very different thing.” A vulgar, crude, filthy thing that very few people could ever accept.

“Fuck! I hate this fucking world!” Kaidan shouted, totally losing his cool, flinging his hands in the air and stomping off across the living room. “It’s the same fucking thing, they just can’t see it! And who the hell gives them the right to judge other people-“

Shepard leapt up, wrapping Kaidan in his arms, pulling him so his back was firmly against Shepard’s chest.

“It’s my life!” Kaidan struggled against him. “I should have the right to choose what I want to do with it-“

Desperate to calm him down, not knowing what else to do, Shepard bit Kaidan on the neck. Hard. Harder than he should have, not hard enough to break the skin, but possibly enough to leave a bruise.

And the effect was instantaneous. Kaidan went limp in his arms, head falling back, a soft, mewling sound coming from his throat.

Shepard held the bite for a moment longer, then carefully released it. “Shh. I know,” he murmured into Kaidan’s ear. “It kills me to have to hide what I have with you. But we can’t change the world over night, and I’m selfish enough to want to keep what we have.”

Kaidan nodded meekly. “I know. I know this is the only way.” He took a deep breath to steady himself, then turned to face Shepard. “But the omegas are still going to need better training than you can provide. No offence.”

Shepard nodded. Rapidly sorted through the options. “So how about you write down a training program. Highlight whatever they most need to know, fill in all the necessary details, and then I’ll present it to them.”

“What if they ask where you got it from?”

“I can tell them it came from David. I wouldn’t name him, of course, but that’s what I planned to tell them in the first place.”

“He was your other omega, right?”

“Yes.”

“And he’s the one who called you? Told you about the suppressants?”

“Yeah.”

And then Kaidan suddenly reached the same conclusion Shepard originally had. “He wants you to mate with him.”

“No, he doesn’t,” Shepard said quickly. “He said he’s already made other arrangements.”

Kaidan was silent. “If he’d asked you to…?” he said, at length. But he already knew the answer. “You would have done. Wouldn’t you.” He said it in a strangely calm voice, resigned, but not bitter.

“Yes. And I think you understand why. You’ve experienced the pain of it. I couldn’t let him go through that alone.”

“Was he… Was he in love with you?”

Shepard barked out a harsh laugh. “Fuck, I was a science experiment to him. I’m not complaining about that, I agreed to the whole thing, and I’m damn grateful for what it taught me, but there was no… Love never came into it. Ever.”

Kaidan nodded, lapsing back into thought. “You’re going to talk to Chakwas? Think she’ll be able to deal with all this?”

Shepard sighed. “I don’t know. But we’ll never know if we don’t try.”


	3. The Avoidance Solution

“Absolutely out of the question,” Chakwas told Shepard firmly. “I understand your concerns – and your… unique experience,” she added, unable to hide a faint trace of disgust, and Shepard suddenly wondered if he had misjudged her. “But this is a fully equipped hospital. We have plenty of appropriate drugs, we have highly trained staff, and what you’re suggesting is… well, I know you mean it with the best of intentions, but frankly, Shepard, it’s abhorrent. Omegas fought for the right to self-determination with blood, sweat and tears… mostly blood, actually, and this would just send them straight back into the dark ages.”

“I’m not suggesting anyone be forced into it,” he said firmly. “I’m absolutely in support of self-determination. All I’m suggesting is that you give them a choice.”

“And your omega friend suggested that, did he? He thinks omegas would rather leap into bed and abandon decency and liberty to avoid a few hours of pain? Shepard, what would Kaidan think if he heard you talking like this? I know that you… well, you and he seem to have made your peace and moved past what happened on Mavigon, but I’d have to be an idiot to think that it wasn’t traumatic for him, and if he knew what you were suggesting, he’d be horrified!”

Shepard bit his tongue. Clenched his fists. Was absolutely determined that he was _not_ going to bring Kaidan into this. Chakwas knew they had mated, and he was truly grateful that she was discrete enough to not have reported the incident. But clearly she was not quite as open minded as he had thought, and telling her that Kaidan had volunteered for the experience, that he had, in fact, had to talk Shepard into it, was likely to lead her to the conclusion that the pair of them were more than just friends. And, given her reaction so far, he didn’t want to find out just where the limits of her discretion were.

“So what are you going to do?” he asked stubbornly. “You can’t magic more suppressants out of thin air.”

“I have a small supply for the more… delicate cases.” God only knew what she meant by that. “And we’ve worked out a protocol for pain relief when the heats hit.”

“I was under the impression pain relief didn’t work.”

“It’s had limited success. But muscle relaxants are the key, I think, as the pain is caused mostly by internal muscular contractions in the reproductive tract. I think that if we can find the right combination, the right dose, then even if we can’t stop the pain altogether, we should certainly be able to take the edge off it.”

Clearly, she had no idea what she was talking about. Heat-cycle pain wasn’t something that needed the edge taken off it. It needed a solid blow to the head with a sledge hammer, and even then, it was going to get up and fight back.

“We have a volunteer for the first trial. He’s already stopped taking his suppressants, and we should be testing it out in the next few days. Don’t worry, Shepard,” she said, leading him to the door. “I promise, I have my patients’ best interests at heart. We’ll work this out.”

Shepard was far less optimistic than she was… but he could see she would not be moved. He made a scornful noise. “If you’re going to try pain killers, then you might want to strap the patient to the bed. He’s going to be seizing, and screaming, and unless you have good IV access to administer the drugs, you’re both going to be screwed. But anyway… good luck. “ And with that, he was gone, leaving Chakwas gaping after him. And he felt a wave for pity for the volunteer. The poor bastard would have no idea what had hit him.

 

 

Later than night, Shepard lay in bed, his body wrapped around Kaidan, his knot buried deep inside his lover. He could still feel Kaidan’s muscles clenching around him from his last climax, and he bit Kaidan’s neck lightly, not enough to leave a mark, but just enough to pinch a little, knowing that Kaidan loved the feel of it, loved the occasional displays of dominance that Shepard made in bed.

“Thank you,” Kaidan said sleepily, and Shepard frowned. 

“For what?” he asked.

“For this. Just… for being here with me.” Kaidan reached back and stroked his thigh, and Shepard automatically tightened his arms around Kaidan’s chest. “I needed this.”

“Something bothering you?”

Kaidan let out a sigh, long, deep, mournful. “Just thinking about what’s going to happen to the omegas. I can’t believe Chakwas didn’t listen to you.”

“It was always a crazy idea,” Shepard pointed out regretfully. “It just happened to be the best out of a bunch of other even worse ideas.”

“Do you think that one day, alphas and omegas will just be able to…”

“To what?”

“To just have normal relationships? Like betas do? Without all the prejudice and politics and wondering whether it degrades us or not?”

Wouldn’t that be a change… and definitely one for the better. “One day,” Shepard said confidently. “Maybe not in our lifetime. But just think… a hundred years ago, who would ever have believed that omegas would be having careers? Serving in the military? Change is always possible, but it takes time.”

Shepard felt his knot begin to recede and immediately regretted the loss of intimacy. Kaidan must have felt it too, as he grumbled lightly, and pressed back harder against him. “I wish we stayed joined for longer,” he murmured sleepily. “Feels so nice…”

Shepard smiled and pressed a kiss to Kaidan’s shoulder. “Go to sleep,” he said gently. “And try not to worry about the omegas. We’ll find a way through this. We always do.”

 

 

Two days later, Shepard was back at the hospital, having just finished his latest physiotherapy session. The therapist thought he was making excellent progress, and in another fortnight, she had said, he wouldn’t need to come back any more.

It was the first piece of good news all week.

He headed downstairs to the shuttle pad, but before he got there, a scream grabbed his attention, and he turned in the direction of the sound. It was coming from the surgical wing, and, as the noise resolved into words, Shepard started walking, then jogging in that direction. 

“It’s torture! It’s insanity! You’re wrong! Chakwas! You don’t know what it’s like…” 

Holy hell, it sounded like someone was threatening Chakwas, and Shepard sped up, skidding around the corner… just in time to see a man being dragged from a consultation room by two security guards, clad in a hospital gown and struggling like his life depended on it. 

“You can’t do it! Please, listen to me!” The man saw Shepard suddenly, and broke free from the guards. He launched himself at Shepard, grabbing his jacket in desperation. “Commander Shepard! Help me. She won’t listen to me. But you’re a beta… she’ll listen to you. You have to stop them.”

Just then, Chakwas came bursting out of the consultation room, looking flustered. “Hawkins,” she said to one of the security guards, “I have another dose of sedative here-“ She saw Shepard, and stopped dead in her tracks. “Oh! Shepard…”

“What’s going on?” he asked, supporting the man who was by now sagging limply, his fists still gripping Shepard’s jacket tightly. It looked like the man was having a psychotic episode, but he was inclined to get all the facts before he started making too many judgments.

Chakwas glanced around, noticing their growing audience, and then quickly waved both Shepard and the man back inside the consult room. She had barely closed the door when the man started ranting again, and when Chakwas tried to interrupt, Shepard shushed her. So sue him, but she wasn’t his favorite person, right at the moment.

“I’m an omega,” the man blurted out. “And the drug company has run out of suppressants, so we were trying to work out how to deal with the heats. All the omegas are going to go into heat soon. And if they’re not mated, then it’s really, really painful.” Shepard listened, his face carefully neutral as he pretended that he had never heard this news before, pretended to be the beta that the man believed he was. “Chakwas put together a cocktail of drugs to try and manage the pain. I volunteered to try it out. God, Shepard, you can’t let them do this. It’s hell. It’s like having all your muscles peeled off your bones over and over and over again… for twelve fucking hours… the drugs are a fucking waste of time, but she,” he all but spat in Chakwas’ direction, ”says they just need to calibrate the dose. It’s torture. There has to be another way. Please, tell her!”

He spun Shepard around, pointing him at Chakwas, waiting expectantly, tense and agitated. Oh hell, now what was he supposed to do? “I think you’re absolutely right,” Shepard told the man. “It’s not the right solution, and we definitely need to find a better one. But we’re going to have to take some time, talk about it, plan things out, so how about... How about you go and get some rest – you must be exhausted – and I’ll stay here and talk to Chakwas.”

“Yes!” The man slumped in relief. “Yes, thank you! I knew you’d help. You’re a hero, Shepard! A true hero!” He allowed himself to be led away then, his legs barely able to support himself, and Shepard cringed at the thought of the pain he must have been through. 

The room was silent, and Shepard was damned if he was going to be the one to break it. “I told you so” would just sound a little hollow, given the circumstances.

“I don’t pretend that what just happened is a decent solution to the problem,” Chakwas said finally, flustered and uncomfortable. “But what other option do we have? What you suggested was completely unethical, so I’m doing the best I can with what I have.”

“No, what I suggested,” Shepard told her calmly, “was completely _illegal_. What you just did to that man was completely _unethical_. Ethics and laws aren’t always the same thing.”

“But you’re asking me to send a group of terrified, inexperienced omegas to be-“

“I’m not asking you to _send_ anyone anywhere,” he barked out at her. “Have you listened to anything I’ve said? What I suggested was that the omegas are given the choice, to go through what that poor man just went through, or to be mated by an alpha who would go well out of his way to look after them. Yes, they would still be mated, but at least they get to choose. They choose who, they choose when, they choose where. That’s hardly the ‘sending them to the gallows’ experience you seem to think it is. And if you don’t come up with a better solution than _that_ ,” he pointed out the door after the exhausted omega, “then things could end up a lot worse for them than the solution I’m offering.”

Rape was the implication, though he didn’t say it out loud. And a brutal and bloody rape at that. 

Chakwas pressed her lips together in a tight line. “I’m sorry, Shepard. I know I’ve broken regulations for you in the past, but that just goes to far. I know we have to find a better solution. But yours just isn’t it.”

 

Two hours later, Shepard left the hospital, feeling nervous and hopeful, both dreading and praying for his plan to work. In theory, getting omegas to mate with alphas was a feasible solution. But it wasn’t just a case of convincing the omegas to participate. It would also require the cooperation of more than a handful of alphas. And not just any alphas. They had to be strong, confident men. Men with a solid moral code, men who cared about the wellbeing of their fellow soldiers. 

It had been a while since he’d played the old ‘Spectre Business’ card, but the ploy still worked, granting him instant access to a restricted room, to talk with a patient who had not yet been cleared for visitors.

Simon Anders was the omega volunteer. And he’d been shattered to hear that Chakwas had refused to listen to reason. But all was not lost, Shepard had explained. There was another solution that just might work… but he was going to need Simon’s help.

He had also needed access to restricted medical records, and had been astonished to discover that his spectre clearance code still worked. And within seconds, a list of all the personnel on the base was scrolling up in front of his eyes, each profile listing hair color, eye color, date of birth, service record… and their alpha/ beta/ omega status… Perfect…


	4. A Volunteer

Two days later, Shepard was not at all surprised to get a call from Dr. Chakwas. And, to her credit, she sounded relatively calm about the whole thing.

“I don’t know what you did, Shepard,” she said, “but I know it was you, and I should have known better than to assume you would just take no for an answer. There’s a small riot happening in my waiting room, so I’ve very much appreciate it if you would come down here, and tell me what on earth you expect me to do.”

As he had, in fact, started the riot in her waiting room, he simply gave Kaidan a peck on the lips and a wink, and got his ass down to the hospital as quickly as possible.

As he approached Chakwas’ consulting rooms, he could hear the raised voices from several hallways away. 

“What did you think we were going to do?”

“There must be someone who can pull rank and get us more.”

“Drugs don’t work. Everyone knows that.”

“They’ve done dozens of trials already, why did you think yours was going to work?”

Perfect. 

But when he rounded the corner, he realised he had underestimated the situation. He had expected ten, maybe a dozen omegas. The list he had accessed had contained all the personnel on the base… but then, looking around the room, he realised that these weren’t just Alliance personnel. There were civilians. Some were no doubt the partners of Alliance betas, but others… News must have spread further than he thought, and an Alliance base was the most likely place in the area to have emergency medical supplies…

There were no less than 23 omegas angrily demanding answers, and he recognised a few faces. Samantha Traynor. Kenneth Donnelly. Both spotted him quickly and aimed their heated questions at him instead. “Commander? We need help! You’re a spectre. Surely you can requisition some suppressants from somewhere?”

“We need a plan! A decent strategy!”

“Or at least, every alpha in the neighbourhood locked up,” someone else added, which led to another outburst in which he could hardly hear himself think.

Chakwas was being mobbed by omegas, and she waved at him over the top of the crowd, clearly asking for help.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” he shouted, getting everyone’s attention. It took a minute or two, but the room settled down so he could speak. “Let me first of all say that yes, I have been informed of the situation regarding the supply of suppressants. I understand that it’s a very serious situation, and Dr. Chakwas and I have already discussed a number of solutions. The medical trial conducted here was a necessary-“

More shouting, angry disagreements flung at him. He waited it out. 

“Was a necessary step to ensure that we are doing the best we can for you collectively.” He didn’t believe that for a minute, but he was going to need these people to trust Chakwas, and stabbing her in the back before they’d even started was never going to achieve that. “We do have a plan B and I hope that once I explain what that plan is, then you will understand why it wasn’t our first choice and that other options needed to be explored. But before we get to that part, I need to talk to Dr. Chakwas for a few minutes.”

More grumbles of protest, which he simply ignored. 

“Would you all please head into the lounge room down the hall. I’m sorry, I don’t think there are quite enough seats, but it has a door we can close, because I think this conversation needs to be a little more private than it is right now.”

That got their attention. It couldn’t have been easy, coming here en mass, announcing themselves as omegas to the entire hospital – and to anyone else who happened to be hanging around – but it spoke volumes about their fear and desperation that they were willing to do it.

Slowly, the group filed away into the far room, leaving him and Chakwas alone. “In your office?” he asked succinctly, and she led the way quickly, closing the door behind them.

She turned to face him, an apprehensive, but resigned look on her face. “So I take it you’re determined to go through with this?”

“I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t honestly believe it was the best thing for them.”

“And if they refuse?” As she clearly expected they would.

“If they refuse, then I’ll consider it to be a closed case. I’m not here to force – or coerce or manipulate – anyone into anything. I just want to present the options. The _real_ options,” he emphasised, “because most people don’t believe that a mating can be anything other than painful and humiliating, but I have first hand experience that says differently.”

“I’d like to hear what Kaidan would have to say about that,” Chakwas snapped, then instantly looked ashamed of herself. “I’m sorry. That was… unprofessional of me.”

He was going to need her onside later, Shepard knew. And having her mistrust him and think the worst of his mating with Kaidan was only going to make things harder down the track. He’d already considered the possibility that this would come up, and had a carefully worded answer ready for her. 

“I spoke to him about it,” he volunteered, and her eyebrows shot up in surprise. 

“Oh?”

“Yes. He was… reluctant at first. But we talked about it, and he thinks this plan could work. And if it’s presented in the right light, then there’s a decent chance the omegas might decide to accept the offer.”

“Really?” She looked astonished. Shepard had the benefit of ten years of hindsight now, and it was easy to forget how shocking and unconventional David’s idea had been when he’d first presented it to Shepard. “Would he choose… mating? If he had the choice over again?”

Time for another carefully worded answer. “Given the choice between twelve hours of excruciating pain, and a gentle, considerate alpha, he’d choose to be mated.” 

Chakwas thought about that for a moment. “And you’re going to tell them what you told me the other day? That you mated with an omega back on Arcturus? I’m assuming you want to leave Kaidan out of this?”

“I do,” he agreed. “So… am I to take it that you’re coming around to this idea?”

“It has to be completely voluntary,” she said firmly. “And I’d like to start with one volunteer, as we did for the pain relief trial. One omega, one alpha, full training and the completion of the heat cycle before we even think about putting anyone else on the program. And if the omega says it went badly, then no more.”

“Agreed. What about facilities? We’re going to need a clean, comfortable room with a double bed. It needs to be isolated from the main ventilation system – pumping omega pheromones all over the hospital would be a disaster. It needs an ensuite bathroom, a lockable door, and it needs to be quiet and isolated. A guard of betas stationed at the end of the hall to keep anyone else away.”

Chakwas thought for a minute, then nodded. “There’s an executive suite in a private wing. Usually reserved for Alliance big wigs, members of parliament, that sort of thing. I could book it out for a couple of weeks. Or your spectre status should clear it, if it becomes a problem. And what about the… training?”

“I asked the omega I mated to write down some instructions. He pointed out that, having had first hand experience of it, he’d be able to explain things from an omega’s point of view a lot better than I would.”

Reading Kaidan’s instructions to the omegas had been… confronting. And liberating. And sexy as hell, though he would never admit it here. He had realised that his clever omega had thoroughly manipulated him throughout parts of the heat, and secretly applauded him for having taken so much control over an otherwise overwhelming situation. 

“Once we have a volunteer -“

“Assuming we get a volunteer,” Chakwas threw in.

“-then we’ll need a few days to line up some appropriate alphas, and a week to let them get to know each other and be properly trained.”

In fact, he already had one alpha signed up and ready to go. The first time he had been told that Steve Cortez was an alpha, he’d been amazed. The calm, easy going man was the complete opposite of everything Shepard had expected. He was skilled, empathetic, focused and soft spoken. Even as disciplined as he himself was, Shepard recognised more than a few alpha traits in himself. But it was Cortez’s very unlikeliness that made Shepard believe he would be an ideal alpha for the terrified omegas. And he completely trusted him to keep the arrangement private.

Cortez had been shocked when Shepard had approached him. And his first reaction had been flat refusal – he didn’t want to hurt anyone, and he’d be terrified of losing control. But once the situation had been explained, and Shepard had told him that he, himself, had successfully mated an omega, had explained that both Cortez and the omega would be trained to make it as smooth as possible, he had agreed. Though not without a degree of disappointment. He’d been one of very few alphas who had supported the self-determination act for the omegas, and any step backwards seemed too much like admitting defeat. Even given the unusual circumstances.

 

Fifteen minutes later, Shepard and Chakwas were back with the omegas, the lounge crowded but quiet, and people were perched on the arms of seats, a few on the floor, as they waited for whatever news was supposed to relieve them of their biologically induced hell.

“Firstly,” Shepard said, when he had everyone’s attention, “I want to make it clear that the solution we have to offer you is absolutely voluntary. We have a very small supply of suppressants secured for the foreseeable future, and there are a few priority cases which require them more urgently than most. For example,” he said, when a wave of protest broke out, “there is an omega patient with a heart condition. If said patient goes through the stress of a heat, it’s very likely that they would die. We all realise how stressful and difficult this is for you, but please understand we have very limited options.

“As such, when your current supplies of suppressants run out, there is no other choice but to go through a heat. What we can offer you is a choice of how you wish to do that. One option is to go through it with whatever pain relief is available. I realise that it’s mostly ineffective.” He raised his voice to quell the rising arguments, “but that is option one.”

He paused, just to let that sink in.

“Option two will require a fair bit of explaining, and I anticipate there’ll be some fairly strong objections to it, until I get a chance to explain it all. So I would ask for your patience, and your silence, for the next few minutes, while I explain this in detail. And please understand that first hand experience has led me to believe, with absolute confidence, that this is the better option for you.”

Ten minutes later, Shepard lapsed into silence, having detailed his plan in depth. He had laid it all bare, his own status as an alpha, the bizarre request from a curious omega ten years ago, the highly educational and experimental heat that had followed, the fact that the omega came back for more the following year. That had earned a few scoffs, an insult to the effect that some omegas were born with their legs spread, and Shepard had pointed out that, whatever they thought of the omega’s character, his second request indicated that it hadn’t been painful or injurious.

He had, of course, entirely left out the part about repeating the experience much more recently, but he had made his point. And then he had laid out his plan for training the omegas, teaching them how to handle a heat, the plan to select reliable, considerate alphas who would undergo similar training. And for the most part, they crowd has listened with respect. And he had reemphasized the fact that the choice to be mated was utterly, completely and absolutely voluntary.

“He’s an alpha,” someone said finally, when the news had sunk in. “How do we know he’s not just out to get laid?”

“He’s Commander Shepard, you wet rag,” Kenneth Donnelly threw back at them, but even he was looking a little green around the gills.

But then Chakwas spoke up. And what she said utterly shocked Shepard. “I have spoken to the omega concerned personally. He told me that he did not receive any unreasonable injuries from Shepard, and I’ve checked his medical records. He never reported any serious injuries after the mating, never presented to any medical facility for treatment. As far as I’m able, I have investigated the incident, and everything Shepard has told me about it checks out.”

It was a twisted sort of truth, Shepard admitted to himself, even as he admired her cunning. The omega she was referring to was Kaidan, not David, but everything else she had said was true. She had personally examined Kaidan after their mating, and had always had access to his medical records. But her open support now was surprising. But as she had said earlier, if they were going to do this, they should do it properly. And, he suspected, her earlier objections had been based on her sense of decency and morality, not on any real fear that the omegas would be harmed. If she had believed they would be seriously injured, he was sure, she would never have allowed him to proceed, no matter how much of a fuss he created.

“So how are you going to pick these alphas?” someone else asked. And despite the resentment in their voice, Shepard took it as a good sign. At least they were prepared to consider the option, rather than dismiss it out of hand.

“There are a number of alphas stationed on this base. Their service records will be reviewed, we would require a statement of character from their COs, and then, once we’ve complied a list of suitable candidates, you will be given that list and allowed to select your partner.”

And that started up another round of everyone talking at once.

“And you think the alphas are just going to agree with this?”

“What alpha in the world is going to turn down free sex?”

“But it means they get outed as alphas. Not everyone wants to risk their career just to get laid.”

“If you ask me, that’s a hell of a shitty plan B.”

“We’re going to give you a few days to think about it,” Shepard interrupted the chaos, “but as you’re all aware, we’re on a time limit here. And what we’d like to do is select one omega and one alpha – on a voluntary basis, of course – to try it out first. I would personally train each of them, and if the results are satisfactory, we would proceed with more couples.”

“So this is an experiment,” someone shouted loudly. “Just like the poor bastard who got tortured with that so called pain relief.”

“I wouldn’t be suggesting this if I didn’t already have solid proof that it could work,” Shepard insisted. He was trying to stay objective, reminding himself that it was their choice, that they had to come of their own free will, or not at all, but the alternative was just so horrific…

“So… just let me get this straight.” It was Kenneth Donnelly who spoke up this time, and Shepard raised an eyebrow, wondering just what he was going to say. “You’re telling us that you mated with an omega and didn’t injure him at all?”

“He had a few bruises and scrapes,” Shepard said, repeating what he had mentioned in passing earlier. “But no broken bones, no deep lacerations, no concussion. He needed a light application of medigel on the cuts, and that was all.”

“Did his bowels work afterwards?” someone else asked.

“Yes. Perfectly well. As I said, he came back a year later and asked me to do it again, so I’m not making any vague assumptions, there. He told me himself that there were no long term side effects from the mating.”

“Then I volunteer,” Kenneth said, and the entire room went so quiet, you could have heard a grasshopper sneeze. Even Shepard took a moment to collect himself. He’d expected questions, extended discussions, day-long debates on it all. Not the instant agreement of a man who quite clearly preferred the company of women, sexually speaking.

“Thank you,” he managed to say. “I wasn’t expecting anyone to volunteer quite so quickly.” He deliberately phrased it in such a way that Kenneth could expand upon his decision… or ignore the statement completely.

“I had an omega uncle who went through a heat when I was a child,” Kenneth said, not sounding the slightest bit embarrassed about the family connection. Most people – omegas included – liked to deny there were any other omegas in their family. “I never, ever want to go through that,” he said emphatically. And that, at least, Shepard could understand. He’d witnessed five minutes of the torture an omega endured. To have had to listen to the entire thing would have been… traumatic, to say the least.

“Very well. I’ll need to have a meeting with you once we’re done here,” he told Kenneth, both pleased and apprehensive about the news. “There’s a number of things we need to discuss.”

 

Three days later, Kenneth stared at the data pad Shepard had just handed him, not even trying to contain the surprise on his face. The alphas on the list had all been vetted thoroughly, had given their explicit permission for their names to be released to the group of omegas, and had had it impressed upon them that this was _not_ simply an easy lay. It was hard work, both physically and mentally, a significant responsibility, and not something to be entered into for anything but the most altruistic of reasons. 

And it was completely unsurprising when Kenneth turned to him, barely a minute later, and handed him back the data pad. 

“Steve Cortez,” he said firmly. “And damn, but I’d never have expected him to be an alpha. Cool, calm and collected, all the way. But I’d trust him with my life.”

Shepard merely nodded and took the data pad back. “How soon would you like to proceed?”

“As soon as possible. I mean… we already know each other. And the others are terrified. If I can get through this, then it’ll show them that it’s a realistic option. Or, if not,” he added with a fatalistic shrug, “I can tell them that that piss-weak pain relief option is the only chance we have.”

“I don’t believe it’ll come to that,” Shepard said firmly. “We’ll need to start the training as soon as possible. And I’m going to have to insist that you don’t discuss any of it with the others until after you’ve finished your heat.”

That had Kenneth’s eyebrows arching up his forehead. “Oh? Why’s that?”

“Some of it is… controversial. It’s nothing harmful,” he reassured him quickly, at his doubtful look. “But it does require a fairly open mind.”


	5. To Wait and See

Sitting on a sofa that was becoming more and more uncomfortable by the minute, Shepard finally gave in to the urge to check the time. Last time he had looked, it had been 9 pm, eight hours into Kenneth’s heat. And now, approaching one o’clock in the morning, they were finally reaching the end of it. Of course, depending on how things panned out, it might take another hour or two before he and Cortez emerged from the suite they had been escorted to, but the wait was approaching its end.

Shepard hadn’t been able to be present at the beginning. Even at low levels, he would have responded to the omega’s pheromones, and he’d had to stay away until Kenneth and Cortez were safely locked away in the room. But Chakwas had told him that they’d both dealt with it well, Kenneth putting on a brave face, making lewd jokes. Cortez had been a little more tense – something she had put down to the hormonal reaction already making him possessive and territorial, but he’d been composed and professional.

Twelve hours on, Chakwas was dozing lightly in a chair beside Shepard’s, her chin resting on her chest. But Shepard had refused to let himself sleep, the weight of responsibility heavy on his shoulders. If anything went wrong, it would be entirely his fault, and he wanted to hear the screams, the shouts, the pleading, if there were any, just to imprint his mistakes firmly into his mind and make sure he never, ever forgot them.

The room Kenneth and Cortez were in was well insulated, but, from down the end of the long hall, he had heard a few moments of raised voices. Kenneth’s distinctly accented cries of “Yes! Yes! Fuck me harder, you sexy fucking man!” had been hard to interpret as cries of pain, and an embarrassed sort of relief had flooded through him.

But that had been hours ago.

Finally giving in to the growing stiffness in his back, he stood up, careful not to wake Chakwas, and paced the room. The coffee they had been drinking had turned bitter and cold hours ago, and he longed for a shot of whiskey.

Rubbed the stubble on his chin.

Stretched his neck.

Paced the room again.

Imagined Kaidan, at home, sleeping warm and comfortable in his bed, and wished he could be there, not just in the man’s bed, but allowed to acknowledge him in his life, publicly, openly…

Then scolded himself for entertaining impossible fantasies. He had more than most alphas ever got. Let that be enough.

It was over half an hour later when the door finally opened, and he got an instant whiff of pheromones, despite the room having been vented to the roof. Kenneth’s omega scent was rich and ripe… but the strong, overlaying scent of Cortez’s alpha settled Shepard’s rising dominance quickly. The scents were clearly mingled, and his inner alpha realised that there was no point issuing a challenge for mating rights here.

They had showered, that much was obvious, Kenneth’s hair wet, and they were both wearing a fresh set of clothes to minimise any lingering scent. And, on his instant, first-impression assessment of them, they looked… acceptable. Kenneth was flushed and avoided looking at him. Cortez, predictably, met his gaze with a glare, before getting control of himself, reining in his alpha to greet Shepard with a respectful nod. But they were both up and walking, neither was bleeding profusely, there didn’t seem to be any serious injuries…

At the sound of their footsteps, Chakwas came awake, bleary-eyed for a moment, then bolting up off the sofa when she realised what was happening. She gave both Kenneth and Cortez a once-over glance… and then they stood in awkward silence for a moment while they waited for someone, anyone, to ask the sixty four million credit question.

“How did it go?” Shepard forced himself to say, finally. He was dreading the answer, hoping for a good result, expecting the worst, and finally, he asked it only because he wanted to be at home in bed with Kaidan and that was never going to happen if he kept standing around here.

“It was…” Kenneth paused, glancing sideways at Cortez. “Well, it was a wee bit different from being with a woman, that’s for sure. But it was… acceptable,” he said finally. Cortez folded his arms and said nothing. “I think I’m going to need a day or two to get my head around it all,” Kenneth went on, “but… it’s a definite option for the omegas."

Shepard felt like crowing with joy – thank God! - but successfully restrained himself. And then he took another glance at Kenneth, and wondered whether his discomfort came less from the fact that he had found the mating awkward, and more from the idea that he’d absolutely loved it and knew he couldn’t admit it.

“Do you need any medical attention?” Chakwas asked, a professional coolness to her voice, but Kenneth shook his head.

“I’ve already put medigel on the worst of things. I should be fine with everything else.” 

By now, Cortez was looking less steady than he had before, and Shepard spared him a glance. “How are you doing?” he asked quietly.

“Not really wanting to talk about it. Sir,” Cortez answered, his voice its usual, respectful tone. But then he glanced sideways at Kenneth… took a minute step towards him… and Shepard realised that he wasn’t dealing well with having another alpha quite so close to his omega so soon after the mating. 

“I’m going to head off then,” he told Chakwas quickly, receiving a nod from her. “Get some rest,” he told Kenneth and Cortez. “You must be tired, and we’re going to have a lot to do in the next few days.”

“Wait! Shepard,” Kenneth called, talking a step forward. Cortez immediately grabbed his arm and pulled him back, and Kenneth grinned despite his obvious embarrassment. He rubbed his shoulder against Cortez’s, rolling his eyes at Shepard. “I just wanted to say… that advice your other omega wrote down… if you get the chance, please thank him for it. It was absolutely spot on, and… well… I guess hearing it from another omega, even as second hand news, as it were, was… well, it was a lot easier to take it that way.”

Shepard smiled and nodded. “When I hear from him, I’ll let him know.”

Without waiting for any more of a goodbye, Shepard turned and headed for the shuttle pad, eager to get home to a warm bed… and a good, long cuddle with his lover.

 

Kaidan felt the bed dip beneath another body’s weight, tensed momentarily as he came awake… then breathed a tired sigh and snuggled backwards into Shepard’s arms as the man settled down behind him. 

They had been doing this more and more lately, sleeping together without any expectation of sex, just enjoying the warmth, the comfort of another body beside their own. And Kaidan had been expecting it tonight. He’d gotten the call about one thirty in the afternoon that the first heat had started, and that Shepard was going to be back extremely late. He glanced at the clock. Quarter past two. It must have wrapped up pretty quickly at the end.

“How did it go?” he asked, because if it had gone badly, he would have moved heaven and earth to help Shepard deal with the disappointment, the pain of having failed…

“It was acceptable,” came the murmured answer in his ear, and Kaidan sighed in relief. Not a shining recommendation, but given the circumstances, anything short of death threats and vitriolic condemnation of the idea was a good thing.

And then Shepard tugged him closer, his arms a warm cage around his body, and Kaidan turned his head to kiss him lightly. Then again, more deeply, when Shepard asked for more.

_I love you._ The words rose in his mind, but had never made it past his lips. Probably never would, not in this lifetime. So instead he said, “Well done. So it’s one down… three dozen to go.”

And Shepard chuckled. Kissed him again… and then he felt the growing pressure of Shepard’s erection and reassessed his earlier opinion. Perhaps there would be sex, after all.

 

The following afternoon, Shepard was once again locked away in a private room with Cortez. He’d been as explicit as possible in describing what the mating would be like to the man – not so much in terms of the physical experience, but rather the mental one, the strange sense of dissociation, the irrational protectiveness, the conflicting urges to either see to the omega’s comfort and pleasure, or to simply fuck his brains out. And he was eager to know if he’d covered the right details, or had left anything out. 

Cortez was pacing the room, having groaned and muttered and fidgeted at Shepard’s most recent question, and Shepard forced himself to wait patiently. If the training needed to be altered, he needed to know. No matter how uncomfortable talking about it was.

“Nothing you say is going to leave this room,” Shepard said. “And remember – I’ve been there.”

Finally, Cortez stopped pacing and turned to face him, his face flushed, a bulge pressed out the front of his pants. “I don’t know how you did it,” he said finally, his voice rough. “Not the mating. The mating was… it was fantastic. But how do you go back to celibacy after something like that? I’ve heard the rumors, about how it feels to have your knot up someone…” He paused, and swallowed hard. “But the actual feel of it… it’s sublime. It’s completely overwhelming. It’s paradise. They all say it’s paradise, and it really is. And you haven’t had sex since?”

“No,” Shepard lied. “Ten years is a long time.” And that part, at least, was true. “And it’s not because I would have chosen to be celibate,” he added ruefully. “But when there’s no other options available…” He shrugged, as if to say ‘what are you going to do?’

“I was worried about hurting him,” Cortez said. “And he struggled a little when I knotted him the first time. But then… But it went fine after that.” Fine was clearly an understatement. Kenneth had already made a glowing recommendation to the omegas, no details, but simply the affirmation that a controlled mating was _infinitely_ preferable to going it alone. And three more omegas had volunteered on the spot.

“So anything you’d want added to the training?”

Cortez shook his head. “It was as thorough as it’s going to get. There’s nothing quite like experiencing it, of course, but the information is solid.”

“And would you consider… having another omega?”

The answer didn’t surprise him. “Yes. Absolutely. Yes.”


	6. Coming Out

Three weeks on, the ‘other’ solution, as it was being called, was a roaring success. Ten more omegas had completed the training and their heats. All had been predictably reticent about discussing it, but none of them had expressed any significant objection to the experience. The alphas had behaved admirably, the hospital’s facilities were working out well… and Chakwas had expressed her sincere gratitude to Shepard for insisting on trying it. It was still an outrageous solution, she had said, after emphasising the need to keep what they were doing utterly secret. Military command were still none the wiser, and she wanted to keep it that way. But despite its unconventional nature, it was working, proper psychological preparation and support getting the omegas through what could have been a highly traumatic experience.

All in all, it was a great success… though an interesting side effect had been that each and every night that he went home, Shepard had spent the evening fucking Kaidan into the mattress. Spending so much time in a hospital wing drenched with omega pheromones, no matter how well they tried to clean everything, was bound to have that effect. 

But Kaidan hadn’t complained, had rather encouraged the attention, and last night, Shepard had come home to find his lover already naked and in bed, his legs spread, with caramel syrup poured over his junk. He shook his head as he headed for the private wing, needing to talk to Chakwas about the next round of training, as he realised he was getting an erection just from thinking about Kaidan’s antics. Later, he’d knelt up on the bed, ass pointed towards Shepard, and had smacked his own buttocks as he suggested Shepard ‘ride him like a pony’.

Nope, that mental image wasn’t helping his erection go away. Kaidan was downstairs in the cafeteria, and in just an hour or two, Shepard would be able to take him home and undress him again, tasting that smooth, warm skin, hearing his breathless moans…

Shepard stopped and took a deep breath, needing to clear his head… And then his head snapped up, his whole body tensing. That wasn’t memories of Kaidan giving him a hard on. That was… the scent of ripe omega.

He started tracking the scent, followed it down the hallway, round the corner, even as a part of his brain was frantically screaming that he needed to stop, to think about this, that it was a bad idea…

And then he came to the room where he and Chakwas had spent that first night waiting for Kenneth and Cortez… and walked straight into a shitstorm waiting to happen.

Becky, a corporal, and an omega, was standing in the middle of the room, stubbornly declaring that her heat hadn’t started yet. Chakwas, along with two nurses, were trying to convince her to head down the hall to the private suite, while Liam, her selected alpha, was pacing the room, no doubt anxious to get her closeted away, but still enough in control of himself to not want to risk pushing the point. Every single alpha Shepard had trained had expressed grave concerns about harming their omegas, and while it had made the training slow and painstaking, it was reassuring that he had selected an admirable team of men.

But the instant Shepard stepped into the room, all of that changed. 

Liam’s head snapped around, his eyes instantly turning golden, and he bared his teeth. Shepard felt a spike in his body temperature, a rush of adrenaline, and felt his own teeth elongate. 

“Becky, get down the hall right now!” Chakwas snapped at her. “Shepard! You turn around and leave. You don’t belong here.” Her voice was strong and firm, an order that was designed to appeal to the soldier in him. The nurses scattered, and he dimly heard one of them calling for security.

“Mine!” Liam growled, preparing to attack Shepard, and though he was a marine, a strong soldier, Shepard knew he would be no match for his own experience and strength. 

“Prove it,” he heard himself say, while the dim, rational part of his brain took a moment to be relieved that he wasn’t carrying a gun. Becky had still not left, retreating as far as the hallway, but no further, eyes wide, hand clamped over her mouth in fear.

He had trained the staff, the omegas, the alphas for every situation he could think of, every possible scenario… but even he hadn’t thought of this. And even if he had, he’d have had no idea how to handle the situation. They’d planned everything so carefully, scheduled everything to avoid ever having two on-heat alphas in the same vicinity. 

And now that they were here, Shepard had absolutely no idea what was about to happen. The omega’s heat was well and truly underway, despite what she thought, and the only possible resolution to this – that he knew of, at least – was that he and Liam would fight until one of them admitted defeat – usually due to being unable to walk any more – and the victor would claim the omega.

And holy hell, he had to think of a way out of this, even as his body geared up for a fight and completely ignored his urgent instructions to leave the room. Think of Kaidan, he told himself, feeling a nauseating disgust at the idea of cheating on him with another omega, and the distraction gave Liam the upper hand for a moment, letting him punch Shepard in the face. Hard.

But Shepard was a seasoned fighter. He had returned the blow in an instant, and followed it up with a second and a third for good measure.

“Shepard! You don’t want to do this!” He allowed himself to be distracted by Chakwas’ urgent plea, turning to aim a threatening snarl in her direction, and Liam hit him again, retreating a little way to regroup, his fists and face both bloody. In truth, the betas in the room were also at risk of a beating, but that would wait until one of the alphas was out of the picture. Both of them saw each other as the biggest threat.

In the background, he heard Chakwas calling Kaidan on her omni-tool. “Major? Where are you? Oh, thank god… Shepard’s fighting with another alpha, and I have no idea how to stop him…” And then he heard the heavy thuds of boots from down the hall and knew security was coming.

But he doubted that was going to save them. His inner alpha had had enough of playing nice, and he bared his teeth again, turning back to Liam with a tighter focus, a low growl in his throat… and then they launched themselves at each other in earnest this time.

Liam was a far better fighter than Shepard had anticipated, fast, focused, despite the alpha heat – or maybe because of it – and they fought with cunning, aiming for each other’s weak spots, the breaks in their defences, waiting for momentary lapses of attention. The guards were circling them both, not sure who to take down, while Becky clung to the wall, having realised too late the chaos she had unleashed.

And then Shepard felt his gut churn, as more voices filled the room. The fighting and shouting had attracted attention, and out of the corner of his eye, he registered the presence of more nurses and a handful of omegas. They must have been here for training, and he wished once again that he’d given someone some sort of instructions for what to do if two alphas got into a fight. _Evacuate the building_ would have been top of the list of priorities…

The guards had tried to tackle him twice, and had been thrown off. They were getting ready for another go, reinforcements arriving, but he doubted it would help. Alphas were notoriously strong and aggressive when in heat.

He and Liam went for each other again, the omega’s scent getting stronger, and this time he managed to hit Liam in the solar plexus, winding him. The alpha in him took a moment to gloat over his downed opponent, before he stalked forward, ready to do some real damage-

“Liam!” Becky dashed forwards, grabbing her alpha, sheltering his body with her own as she glared up at Shepard. “Get the fuck away from him!” she shouted, completely undaunted by an angry and aroused alpha bearing down on her.

And what do you know, the demand stopped him in his tracks. The sane part of Shepard took note, amazed by his own reaction. This omega, _his_ omega, had just expressed a strong preference for another male. And his own alpha was rattled, uncertain and strangely doubtful as to how to proceed. But then he growled, the hormones surging again. “You want _that_?” he asked in disgust, nodding to the winded man on the floor, and Becky nodded emphatically. 

“Yes. I want Liam.” She looked him in the eye, fierce as a tigress, and spat in his direction. “I’m _his_.”

Dimly, Shepard heard a familiar voice shouting. “Let me through! Out of the way!” And then, as he considered how to convince Becky that _he_ was the better choice… Kaidan suddenly appeared in front of him, shoving him backwards, away from the pair on the floor.

“Hey, Shepard. What’s happening?” he asked, his voice as calm as if they were discussing the weather.

“You’re late,” Shepard said, his alpha suddenly roaring to the forefront again. Kaidan! His gorgeous, sexy omega was here! “Where have you been?”

 

Kaidan send a desperate prayer heavenward as he threw himself in between the two alphas, hoping his crazy, spur-of-the-moment plan would work. Months ago, Shepard had told him that his first omega had done extensive research before he’d invited Shepard to mate with him. And so, Kaidan figured, the right information had to be out there, if you only knew where to look. And he’d wanted information himself, not about mating, but about the long term effects of a relationship between an alpha and an omega. He knew such couples did exist, but most often, the pair simply pretended to be betas – without a medical certificate, and assuming neither of them went into heat, no one would really know the difference – and he hoped that someone, in some seedy corner of the extranet, had written a few things down.

Information had been sparse, but one of the few things he had discovered was that if a long term bond did form, even an on-heat alpha would be reluctant to mate with anyone but his bonded omega. The pheromones were still potent and powerful, mating was imperative, but given the choice, the alpha would choose their regular partner over a stranger.

So all he had to do now was convince Shepard that he was ready and willing to mate… and pray that Chakwas firstly got the other omega out of the room in a hurry, and secondly, that she had a nearby room that he and Shepard could use. Because if not, all Shepard was likely to do was beat up everyone else in the room, seeing them as a threat to his mating with Kaidan…

Fuck, this all got complicated at times, Kaidan thought, as he shoved Shepard away, across the room until his back hit the wall. And he was actually surprised at how easily Shepard complied.

“I didn’t realise you needed me quite so soon,” Kaidan replied to Shepard’s question, aware that Shepard was far from thinking straight. He kept his voice low, aware of their extensive audience, but hoping, even now, to keep as many details of the relationship as possible private.

“I want you,” Shepard purred, already pawing at Kaidan, hands everywhere. But then the couple in the corner moved, heading hastily down the hallway, and Shepard’s head swung round with a growl. Kaidan grabbed his head and yanked it back. 

“No, you look at me. You don’t need to worry about them. Chakwas?” he called urgently over his shoulder. “We’re going to need a room.”

“This way,” she said, leading them away from the other couple, and thankfully, the gathered crowd parted, scurrying out of Shepard’s reach in fear. But Shepard grabbed his arms, yanked him back when he moved to go after Chakwas.

And then he asked that hot, silky question that almost had Kaidan coming in his pants. “Where are you going?” It was just as sexy as the last time he had heard it, some nine long months ago, but this time, he knew how to answer it better.

“We’re going to find a bed for you to fuck me on,” he said, his voice a mere murmur. “Come on. This way…”

Shepard following him willingly, a lusty noise of approval rumbling out of him, and moments later, Chakwas was shutting them inside another room. He heard the lock click shut behind them.

Shepard instantly had him pinned up against the wall, kissing him, his knee pressing between Kaidan’s legs, his erection rubbing against his thigh, and then he asked, a veiled threat in his voice, “Why are you still dressed?”

“Because _you_ haven’t taken my clothes off yet.” It had sounded harsh and manipulative when Kaidan had read it during his research, but apparently, if anything went wrong during a mating, all the omega had to do was imply that it was the alpha’s fault, and the alpha would go out of his way to fix it. With no repercussions on the omega.

It was the type of detail that could easily be abused, and Kaidan certainly didn’t want to do that… but at the same time, it had been a startling insight into the workings of an alpha’s hormone-addled mind. And had further reinforced his belief that omegas held far more power over their more aggressive partners than they had been led to believe.

Shepard bared his teeth at Kaidan’s implied complaint, but then set about calmly and gently removing said clothing. Undid the buttons on his shirt, kissing his way down his chest as he did so. Peeled off his pants, stopping to suck Kaidan’s cock. And then hastily ripped off his own clothes, when Kaidan complained about him being over dressed. 

“Bed,” Shepard ordered next. “I want to fuck you.”

“Baby, I thought you’d never ask…”

 

Single beds really weren’t made for vigorous sex, Kaidan thought, forty five minutes later. He was kneeling on the mattress, clinging to the headboard as Shepard ploughed into him from behind, the alpha moaning in pleasure as their flesh slapped together. Kaidan had been apprehensive at first, not sure if Shepard would understand that he wasn’t in heat himself, and that his body wouldn’t tolerate the constant vigorous sex they’d engaged in last time. But Shepard had been adorably sweet the first time around, taking the time to stretch him slowly and carefully, holding himself back so much that his hands were shaking by the time he finally climaxed and let his knot swell inside Kaidan. 

He was approaching his third climax now, the third time Kaidan would be knotted, and, if he was honest with himself, he was really just waiting for the mock-heat to be over. It wasn’t painful or unpleasant having Shepard inside him, but five orgasms later, he was past any real desire to continue.

And then Shepard grunted, Kaidan felt that familiar hot spurt inside him, and then the knot swelled, locking them together and forcing another orgasm from his tired body. He groaned, not fighting his body’s response, but he sagged against the headboard, more than a little worn out. He felt Shepard stroking his back, mouthing his neck, and hoped he would be done soon…

 

 

Kaidan was lying on his side, feeling Shepard’s knot recede. The two of them barely fitted on the narrow bed together, so he was pressed rather tightly against Shepard… which meant he felt his sudden tensing easily, and braced himself for… well, he wasn’t sure exactly. 

“What the hell?” Shepard asked, and Kaidan breathed a sigh of relief. An hour and a half, it had taken the mock-heat to wear off, long enough for Shepard to knot him four times and give him nine orgasms. The last two had really been pushing it, and his abdomen felt sore, his balls tight and inflamed, and he wasn’t sure what he would have done if Shepard had wanted to go again.

“What the fuck happened?” Shepard asked again, sitting up suddenly. The move pulled his not-quite-deflated knot suddenly out of Kaidan, who yelped, his abused entrance protesting sharply.

“Sorry! Shit, I’m so sorry…” Shepard pushed him gently onto his stomach and pulled his ass cheeks apart, probing his entrance with a feather-light touch. It felt red and inflamed, and Kaidan grumbled in protest. “Fuck… What the hell did I do to you?”

“You went into a mock heat,” Kaidan said, not bothering to lift his head from the pillow. “Got too close to an omega.”

“Fuck… and I fought her alpha.” 

“Yeah, there was that, too.”

“Oh, god, I am so sorry.” Shepard leapt off the bed, and Kaidan heard the telltale rustle of clothing, as Shepard was no doubt dressing himself.

He made an effort to roll over… a certain degree of embarrassment was likely, when Shepard realised he had gone into heat, but the man seemed to be reacting even worse than Kaidan had expected. He avoided looking at him, dressing rapidly, then gathered Kaidan’s clothes and tossed them to him. “I’m so sorry,” he said again, and the look on his face was so out of place, was something that Kaidan had never expected to see on Shepard, that it took him a moment to figure out what it was.

Shame. Shepard was ashamed of himself. 

That was a feeling Kaidan could relate to, having felt it in spades after his heat, both ashamed of the reactions of his body during the mating, and ashamed of how much he had enjoyed it, the illicit desire to do it again, and it had taken quite some time to work through all the feelings.

He stood up, still naked, and stepped closer to Shepard. “Hey. It’s okay. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“But you didn’t want this!” Shepard said sharply, flinging his hand out to encompass the bed, and, presumably, everything that had happened on it. He looked horror-stricken… and Kaidan suddenly understood what the problem was. In a move that echoed something Shepard had once done to him, he grabbed the man by the collar and shoved him up against a wall. Certain that he had his attention now, Kaidan looked him in the eye, making sure there could be no mistaking what he was about to say. 

“You did _not_ just rape me. I chose to be here.”

“I doubt I gave you much of a choice-“

“You listen to me.” Kaidan gave him a quick shake. “You went into heat, and I chose to help you through that. You did the same thing for me, on Mavigon.”

“That’s not the same thing,” Shepard protested, but Kaidan was having none of it.

“Why? Because when I go into heat, it’s a natural biological process, but when you do it, there’s something depraved about it? You’re going to have trouble defending that kind of logic, believe me.”

Shepard gaped at him, his face pale, his mind no doubt trying to sort through everything that had happened. “But I hurt you,” he said finally, his voice quiet, regretful.

What was he supposed to say to that? “A little, yeah,” Kaidan admitted, knowing that denying it wouldn’t get them anywhere. “But nothing serious. And it wasn’t deliberate.” Not knowing what else to do, Kaidan put his arms around Shepard and hugged him closer. Shepard let his head drop down to rest on Kaidan’s shoulder, his breathing rapid and uneven against his naked skin. 

“Did I hurt anyone else?” he asked softly.

“No, just Liam. But I dare say you’ll have a few bruises of your own from that. There is another problem, though.” Might as well get it all out into the open at once.

Shepard moaned, then lifted his head. “What?”

“When we headed into this room… we kind of… had an audience.” Whatever happened next, the omegas were going to ask for some sort of explanation. And once part of the story was out, it wasn’t going to take anyone long to figure out the rest. He wasn’t worried about the bigger picture – no one in the ward was likely to spill the story to the Alliance. The omegas had too much to lose themselves, and the staff had all been hand picked for the project and sworn to secrecy. But… he had no idea what the omegas would think of him having a long term relationship with an alpha. From Shepard’s reports, they were coping well with their own roles, their heats, their matings, but what he was doing with Shepard took that unfortunate indiscretion way, way further.

“I remember that,” Shepard said. “They were treating it like a damned spectator sport, when they should have been running for their lives. Damned fools. God damn it… what are we going to tell them?”

Kaidan sighed. “The truth? I mean… telling them about Mavigon would be relatively simple – it’s not so far removed from their own situation, and I think they’d understand that. But the rest of it? I don’t see how I can explain being able to get you away from an on-heat omega any other way. Or if I could, somebody is bound to see through it.”

“Fuck!” Shepard slammed his hand, open palmed, into the wall. “I should have fucking controlled myself.” He turned to Kaidan. “I’m sorry. I wanted to protect you from all this.”

“I know. But this isn’t your fault.”

“Then whose fault is it?”

“Chakwas, for starters. If she knew she had an omega going into heat, why didn’t she lock the ward until they were safely ensconced away? Or you could blame the omega, if you really want to, for not listening to the nurses.”

Shepard made a grumbling noise, a concession that Kaidan had a point, but still expressing the fact that he wasn’t happy with it. He stroked Kaidan’s shoulders lightly, then gave him a gentle kiss. “You need to get dressed,” he said. “And then we need to go face the music.”

“Hopefully Chakwas has everyone back in their box where they belong by now,” Kaidan said, reaching for his clothes. “I just know she’s going to have something to say about it, and I’d rather deal with one lecture at a time.”

 

Kaidan and Shepard stepped out of their room and headed cautiously back towards the private wing. Kaidan made an effort not to look sheepish, but it was a tough ask. Chakwas was just where they expected to find her, sitting in the waiting room, and she looked up as they entered, a professionally bland expression on her face. 

“How are you both?” she asked evenly. “Do either of you need medical attention?”

“No,” Shepard said, while Kaidan went with “I’m fine.” He felt like he was a school boy again, caught smoking behind the gym, and felt a flush warm his face as he waited for Chakwas to say something.

And finally, she did. “So… you’re not only living together, you’re also sleeping together.” It was said as a statement, not a question, and Chakwas let out a self-deprecating laugh. “I must be getting blind in my old age. Oh, come on, boys, sit down,” she said when they both just stood there, awkward and vaguely resentful of her mirth. “I had assumed,” she said to Kaidan, once they had settled themselves on the adjacent sofa, “that you had simply forgiven Shepard for what happened on Mavigon. It’s no secret that you’ve always looked up to him. I mean, who wouldn’t? But when you refused to press charges, I had my doubts. I thought perhaps you were simply putting the mission first, the galaxy’s safety above your own. And then you moved in together, and I thought, well then, they really must have moved past it.” She gave a sad, regretful sort of smile, then, her eyes bright. “I have been blind. And I have to thank both of you for opening my eyes. Honestly, if it was any other alpha, any other omega, I would have dismissed it as debauchery, indecency, a simple lack of self control. But I respect you both too much for that, so I’ve spent the last hour sitting here, thinking about what you were doing in that room. Thinking about how quickly Kaidan came to control the situation, how easily Shepard followed his lead… and it’s made me realise that I’ve been terribly mistaken. An alpha and an omega in a relationship together… You two make it look like a stunningly beautiful thing.”

Kaidan was speechless. He hadn’t known what to expect from Chakwas. A professional refusal to comment? Thinly veiled disapproval? Or even reluctant acceptance, he might have expected. But wholehearted approval? That was way out of left field.

“We never intended it to come out like this,” Shepard said apologetically. “And I’m sorry for the fight. I didn’t mean to-”

“You’re an alpha,” Chakwas said, without any resentment. “The room was flooded with omega pheromones, so you reacted the same way any alpha would have done. I should have gotten Becky into the suite sooner. I just… We’ve been so careful to respect the omega’s rights that I suppose I forgot the safety risks involved when things get heated. I’m just as much to blame. Probably even more so. But what I want to know is… does it work? Between you two? Do you… Does Shepard control the relationship? Does the dominance/ submission thing extend outside the bedroom? I’m sorry, I know I’m being horribly nosy, but… I’ve never seen anyone do this before.”

“Let me firstly say that it’s none of your fucking business,” Shepard replied firmly, and Chakwas immediately apologised.

“Of course, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean any-“

“And then I’ll say that it’s basically the same as any relationship between betas,” he went on, ignoring her rambling. “We each have strengths and weaknesses. We work to them. We compromise. We argue. It’s more about being two human beings than it is about being an alpha and an omega.”

Chakwas smiled, a small, almost secretive expression. “Thank you,” she said respectfully. Then she sighed. “The omegas are asking a lot of questions. And for today, I’ve sent them all home without any answers, but tomorrow… I’m afraid you’re in for a bit of a grilling.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just had to do this. People kept saying ‘what if Kaidan goes into heat and Shepard has to save him!’ so I figured, let’s just flip that around and have Kaidan save Shepard for once. Let it not be said that I do things the conventional way...


	7. Is Now a Good Time To Panic?

A room full of twenty angry omegas had greeted them first thing in the morning. Clearly, the omegas had been discussing this amongst themselves, as, despite having had other things on his mind at the time, Kaidan was sure there had only been about five in the room when Shepard went all alpha. The meeting had started with confusion, accusations, shouting, until Shepard had yelled at them all and the group had calmed down. 

And then Kaidan had started in on the explanations. Mavigon. The blizzard. Shepard’s startling suggestion and the resulting 12 hours that had completely altered his perspective of the world.

“So basically you went through a forced heat, just like we’re doing?” It was Traynor who summed up the situation, and he nodded, grateful that someone, at least, had a solid grasp on things. “And Shepard did the same thing for you that the alphas are doing for us now?”

“That’s basically it.”

“So why didn’t you tell us?” someone else asked angrily. “I mean… we’ve all been outed as omegas. Did you just think you were too good for that?”

More angry accusations… until one voice broke over the noise.

“No,” Kenneth said loudly. “It’s because he didn’t just go through the heat. He shacked up with the alpha, afterwards.” There was no disgust in Kenneth’s voice, just a plain statement of the facts, but several people around the room gasped.

“That’s disgusting!” one of the omegas said.

“Oh, it is not,” Kenneth argued back. “They’re both the finest soldiers you’ll find anywhere in the galaxy. So what if one of them has a knot on his Johnson.”

“It’s shameful,” another man spoke up. “Just because we have to do this once doesn’t mean we should throw all decency out the window and spread our legs for any stray alpha that comes along.”

One of the omegas jumped to her feet. “You did not just call Commander Shepard a stray!” And then it was a free-for-all.

“Have you actually been through a heat?”

“I’m not going through a mating if it’s going to turn me into a knot-slut.”

“Some of us still have standards!”

“Did you just call Major Alenko a knot-slut?!”

“You’re disgusting.”

“No, _you’re_ disgusting!”

“You should all be ashamed of yourselves!”

And then, one woman – Kaidan recognised her as the omega who had started all the trouble with the alpha fight yesterday – stood up on a table, raised her arms, and shouted, “My name is Becky Tanner. I went through my heat yesterday. And I think knotting is the most fantastic thing anyone ever invented!”

The entire room went quiet, every omega gaping at her in utter astonishment. 

“And,” she went on, when she realised she had everyone’s attention, “I’m damn sure that every other omega who has actually been through a heat would agree. You’re just too damn scared to say so!”

The silence was so think you could have cut it with a knife.

“Well, you’ll get my agreement on that one,” Kaidan said flippantly. Part of him was worried that this was going to put an end to their illicit experiment in social engineering, and bring the wrath of the Alliance down on all their heads. Another part of him was applauding the girl, for having the courage to say what he, himself, had been afraid to. Lending his voice to the argument now was a little late, but better late than never. 

“Damn straight,” Kenneth spoke up, his voice wistful. “I’d let Cortez do me again any day he likes. But that’s the difference,” he went on hastily. “Because it would only be Cortez. Not any random alpha who came sniffing at my door.”

“Exactly,” someone else said. “We’re allowed to enjoy sex if it’s with a beta. So why can’t we enjoy it if we’re with an alpha? That doesn’t mean you have to go and turn into a whore. There are omegas who sleep around with just about anyone, and yes, I think that’s disgusting. But if it’s just one alpha… Why is it so different? Why should we be ashamed of that?”

There was agreement from other omegas – some were quiet, embarrassed admissions, others were enthusiastic affirmations of the idea. Some – presumably those who had yet to go through their heats – simply put their heads down in embarrassment.

“I’d wondered why Shepard wasn’t mating with any of the omegas,” one of the women said. “After all, he started off knowing the most about it. But if he’s got a partner, then that explains it.” She smiled, a bashful, pleased expression. “I think it’s sweet.”

“Wait a minute! Kaidan?” Kenneth asked suddenly. “Were you actually the omega who wrote the training plan?”

“Yeah. I was.” It made him feel vulnerable, knowing that much of his advice could now be easily projected onto his relationship with Shepard, feeling like the group now knew far, far more than he had ever wanted anyone to know about their love life.

“It was absolutely fantastic,” Kenneth said, wide-eyed sincerity. “God, I was terrified before I read some of that stuff. But what you said about how to control an alpha – that was priceless. And the description of how the knotting feels the first time… wow… Thank you. Just… thank you.”

There was a chorus of voices echoing the sentiment, and didn’t that just make him feel better. “You’re welcome,” he said bashfully. 

“Needless to say,” Chakwas stood up, bringing the group back to order, “none of what has been said here today gets repeated outside this ward. Shepard and Kaidan are entitled to their privacy – just as I’m sure you would be horrified if anyone was discussing your participation in this program in public. Now I have some things I need to discuss with Shepard-”

“Before we end the meeting,” a woman called out, “has anyone else seen the news vids? Mitron Pharmaceuticals made an official announcement about the suppressants being out of stock.” She looked absolutely horrified, and Kaidan felt a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. He had been deliberately avoiding watching the news. By now, there had to be hundreds of omegas who were starting to run out of suppressants, and he could well imagine what they were going through. It would just be too heartbreaking to watch it played out on the screen, over and over again…

He’d tried to tell himself that they were doing everything they could, and that it was simply too much to ask that they help everyone. But another part of him was cringing in agony at the thought of what so many people were enduring.

“Why do you watch that shit,” Kenneth complained. “We all know what’s got to be happening out there.”

“Most people are trying to wait it out themselves, going through it alone,” someone else piped up. “Four omegas were admitted to a psychiatric ward last week in London alone. They went mad from the pain.”

“I saw a vid from New York. Nineteen omegas were raped by a pack of alphas. They just drove around and picked them off the streets. Held them hostage for days.”

“The police found a mass grave in Paris. Forty three omegas. They’d all been raped, then beaten to death.”

“I saw an alpha in Seattle hand himself in to police. He said an omega friend of his had asked him to mate with her, but he ended up breaking her ribs, her jaw and her arm. So he handed himself in to be charged with assault.”

And then, the news that Kaidan and Shepard had both been dreading, the step that would undo decades of campaigning and advances in social justice. “The parliament has called an emergency cabinet meeting. They’re re-examining the Self-Determination Act.”

And that was it. Utter pandemonium, shouting, screaming, people begging Shepard to intervene, to talk to the parliament, calls for Chakwas to render an expert medical opinion on the matter… 

And Kaidan felt like vomiting. What they were doing was not enough. All the careful planning, all the risks, all the precautions… they were helping a few dozen people, when a single crisis had turned the omegas back into the less-than-human slaves they had been for centuries.

It was not good enough…

 

Shepard slowly eased himself off the bed, checking to make sure he didn’t wake the sleeping man beside him. The day had gone badly, starting with the mess of a meeting, the news of the brutalities being done to omegas… and then they had received a call from Alliance headquarters. 

Their official position was that all omegas were on leave, effective immediately. They were to leave the Alliance bases, go home, and not return until their heat was over. 

The stated reason was that the omegas needed time to make appropriate arrangements, to secure isolated locations, to seek medical advice. The real reason, poorly disguised, was that the Alliance knew the omegas were in dire straits, and wanted to be able to deny any responsibility if – or when – any of them either got raped or went mad from the pain.

Chakwas, of course, had completely ignored the orders, continuing with their mating program as planned, but where the atmosphere had once been optimistic, if tense, it was now grim and bleak.

Immediately after that hideous piece of news, Shepard had gotten a call from Hackett. He’d apologised profusely, said that he had strongly opposed the move, but he’d been outvoted. And then he’d advised Shepard to take which ever omegas he knew of, and get them somewhere safe. That was the best he could do.

Kaidan had taken the news hard. It was one thing to hear of the brutality via a news vid. It was quite another to have the Alliance completely turn its back on its own, men and women who had served faithfully, had risked their lives, now discarded like cheap rubbish. And terrifying to realise that Kaidan was one of the ones they had abandoned, that, without Shepard, he would now be in the same boat as everyone else.

They’d sat for hours on the living room sofa that night, Kaidan curled up in Shepard’s arms, head on Shepard’s shoulder, his silent tears soaking his shirt. Kaidan was strong, resilient, resourceful… but he’d devoted his life to the Alliance, had served with pride, enlisting the same day the Act was passed, officially allowing omegas into military service, and though he’d hidden his shock well at the base, by the time they got home, he’d been unable to keep up the pretence any more.

And Shepard had simply held him, wishing he could do more, wishing he could think of a better solution. Wishing he could take away his lover’s pain.

It had gotten late, and Shepard had finally convinced Kaidan to go to bed. He’d lain beside him in the dark until Kaidan had finally fallen asleep.

And then he’d slipped out of bed, to head back to the living room. He quickly started up a dozen different searches on the extranet. Somewhere out there, there had to be an idea, a solution, something that could help not just a handful of omegas, but all of them. Perhaps a way of disseminating what they now knew to other medical facilities? An underground network of civilised alphas? He’d try almost anything, if there was a chance it would help…

 

“No, I can’t. I can’t do it. I CAN’T DO IT!”

Shepard pulled up sharply, on his way to Chakwas’ office in the private wing of the hospital. Frightened, vehement denial sounded like an omega who had suddenly decided not to go through with the mating after all, and he cautiously sniffed the air, dreading the scent of omega pheromones. He and Chakwas had put a new security protocol together after the last… incident, and he would have hated to think there had been a lapse in security already.

But the air was clear. So who was getting so upset?

He cautiously headed along the hall towards the sound of the voice, and discovered Chakwas sitting on the couch in the waiting room with a young man. A man who looked strangely familiar, though Shepard wasn’t able to place him immediately. But when the man saw him, he leapt up, stunned and delighted and terrified all at once.

“Commander Shepard! I’d heard you were here. That’s why I had to come. I heard a rumor that you…” He dropped his voice to a whisper, and glanced around, as if expecting spies lurking behind the potted plants. “That you’re an _alpha_.”

“Yes, I am,” Shepard admitted easily. “I’m sorry, have we met?”

“Yes! No. Well, sort of. Very briefly. I’m Jonn Whitson.” Shepard tried to place the name… and failed. 

“I’m sorry, I don’t-“

“You stopped me from becoming a mercenary! Back when we were going after archangel. You broke my gun!”

“Oh, right! I remember you. You sent me a message. Said you were going to make something of yourself.”

“And I have!” Jonn said eagerly. “Or at least, I’m working on it. I’ve gone back to school. Studying to become an engineer. I figured staying on Omega was only going to lead to more crime, to I headed back to Earth.”

“Right. So what brings you to the hospital?”

Jonn flushed bright red, and Shepard had an inkling that he knew what the problem was. 

“Well, that’s because, I… um… I thought maybe… I’d heard that… um… the thing is… I’m an omega,” he blurted out finally. “And I only have four days of suppressants left. But I can’t go through a heat. I can’t do it, Shepard! You have to give me more! I thought that, since you’d helped me out before, maybe you could now? Please? I’ve worked really hard to get my life back in order. I’ve passed all my exams. Please help me?”

Oh, hell. The kid was young, could only be nineteen or twenty at the most, had probably only had his first heat a year ago. The first ones were always mild, stomach cramps for an hour or two, a persistent erection and then it was all over. But it was a warning to the omega that next year… watch out. They were mature and capable of breeding, and without chemical intervention, their bodies would insist that they do just that.

Shepard glanced at Chakwas, who was giving him a stern glare, out of sight of the boy. And, knowing he couldn’t promise anything that Chakwas didn’t actually have, he decided to hedge around the problem for a moment. 

“I’m just going to have a chat to Dr. Chakwas for a minute, okay? Don’t go anywhere.”

He led her into an adjacent room and closed the door. “What’s the situation?” he asked without preamble.

“Can’t do it,” she said, though it was not without regret. “I have a regular supply coming in that can cover four omegas. That’s it. Two have medical conditions and will die if they go through a heat. One is a young woman who has already been raped once, and she’ll end up in a psychiatric hospital if she has to go through another mating, and one is for an omega married to a beta. He’s said he’d rather go through the pain than cheat on his wife, and damn it, but I think that’s a good enough reason. That’s all I have. If Jonn had a more serious objection, then I’d try to work something out, but nothing in his story so far justifies special treatment.”

“So what is his story?”

“He says he has an omega brother who was raped a few years ago. I understand that that’s traumatic, but the brother came out of it with just a broken leg, and Jonn didn’t actually witness the rape, so in terms of real trauma – Jonn’s is on the low end of the scale. He’s young and he’s terrified, but no more so than some of the omegas we’ve already walked through this. So, I know it sounds heartless, but given what we’re up against here, it’s just not enough of a reason to let him have a supply of suppressants.”

“Will he consider the training? The mating?”

“I’ve explained the basic details to him, but he refuses to even discuss it. He just keeps insisting that he can’t do it.”

“Hmm.” Not an easy situation. They had had two other omegas who had refused the mating, but both had been through the training, and had eventually decided that enduring the pain was the better option. 

Both had regretted it afterwards.

And Shepard held to his original statement that he would not force, coerce or manipulate anyone into letting themselves be mated… but in all likelihood, if they didn’t do something to help Jonn, he was just the sort of headstrong, naïve fool who would fail to make adequate arrangements and end up being raped.

“I’ll have a chat to him,” Shepard said finally, wishing he’d taken the time to have a second cup of coffee this morning. He’d hardly slept, working til one in the morning, searching the extranet for anything that might help, and had only gone to bed when Kaidan had woken up and come padding out to the living room, issuing a sleepy, grumpy, “Come to bed,” demand. And then he’d woken up at 5am, still without any solutions, and having to face another day of the world’s slow spiral into disaster.

“Hey, Jonn?” Shepard seated himself on the sofa opposite Jonn.

“Can I get some more suppressants?” he asked immediately, and Shepard shook his head. 

“No. I’m sorry, but we don’t have any more supplies than anyone else.”

“They’re still making them!” Jonn insisted. “Sixty percent capacity was destroyed, but that still means forty percent of omegas can have the pills, right?”

In an ideal world, yes. But in reality, the continuing supplies were being stockpiled and hoarded by rich omegas with political pull, and whatever was left was being sold on the black market. A week’s supply was currently selling for 500 credits, well outside the average worker’s price range.

“I’m sorry, but we can’t give you pills,” Shepard repeated firmly. “But we do have another option that I’d like to run past you.”

“I can’t go through a heat!” Jonn insisted. “I’ve seen the vids. I’ve seen what they’re doing to omegas. I’m nineteen years old! I’m too young to die!”

Shepard sighed and fought for patience. It was going to be a long day.


	8. Good News and Bad News

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love this chapter. I think it's one of my favorite chapters.

Kaidan looked about as bad as he felt, Shepard thought darkly, when his boyfriend walked into the hospital later that afternoon. He wanted to hug him, but held back. Even if everyone in the ward knew about their relationship, there was no sense in getting sloppy. They had both worked hard for the past six months to avoid any public displays of affection, any sideways glances, any public hint whatsoever that they were more than friends and comrades. 

But hell, some days, he’d kill to just be able to wrap his arms around Kaidan without looking over his shoulder, wondering who was watching. 

“Sorry to call you in,” he apologised quietly, leading Kaidan through to the room where Jonn was waiting. “I’ve tried everything else I can think of, but he just won’t listen to me. I’m hoping you can get through to him.”

“I’m willing to give it a go,” Kaidan said, determined, even though he was exhausted and probably feeling very despondent about the whole situation. But one more life saved was still worth saving, right?

“He knows about Mavigon, but other than that, I’d avoid mentioning anything about our relationship to him,” Shepard cautioned. “I have a feeling he’s the type to cut and run, and the less he knows, the less trouble he can cause down the track.”

“Right,” Kaidan agreed. “So where are we up to now?”

“Same place as when I spoke to you last. I tried to convince him to consider mating, and he said he wouldn’t even think about it unless he could speak to an omega who’s been through it. Said that an alpha couldn’t possibly understand what it was like. And then he called me a few choice names.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Kaidan said tiredly. “But it’s hard enough on Alliance personnel, mating with people they already know and trust. He’s out on a limb, flying blind here.”

“I know,” Shepard said softly. And Kaidan looked at him with such longing that he actually took a step forward before reining himself in.

Kaidan steeled himself, and nodded. “I’ll see what I can do,” he repeated.

 

Half an hour later, Kaidan was at a loss. Jonn had asked him for suppressants four times, explained about his brother’s rape three times, and called him a knot-slut once. But, even without Shepard’s insistence that they try everything to help the guy, he wouldn’t have given up. The poor kid was terrified, having heard the worst of mating stories – particularly from omegas in the Terminus Systems, where suppressants were hard to come by at the best of times, and Kaidan wracked his brain for something that might help.

“Okay, how about we look at this from a different angle,” he said, after once again persuading Jonn to come and sit down on the sofa. “Have you ever had sex? With an omega or a beta, I mean?”

Jonn looked flustered at the change of topic. “Yeah. Of course.”

“And do you prefer men or women?”

Jonn shrugged. “Either, I guess. Sex is sex, right?”

Well, no, not really, Kaidan thought. But anyway… “Which were you with when you did it?”

“Um… a man. Several men. You know, at different times, though. Not all at the same time.”

Okay, that made things a little easier. If he’d expressed a strong preference for women, this line of conversation would have been dead in the water. “And were you giving, or receiving?”

Jonn looked at him blankly. “What?”

Really? He had to explain this? “Were you inside him, or was he inside you?”

“Um…” Blank look. Yeah, it was as he’d suspected.

“Have you ever had sex before?” Kaidan asked, making sure his voice was calm and patient.

Jonn looked away. “I had a blow job once,” he admitted finally. “So I’m not a virgin, right?”

Kaidan fought hard to keep the smile off his face. But he wasn’t laughing at the boy. Growing up in the Terminus Systems, ending up trying to become a mercenary with no training and no experience with a weapon – his childhood had clearly been far from ideal, and if most of what he knew about sex had been gleaned from pornography vids… it was no wonder he was confused. Kaidan found the whole situation to be… kind of cute, actually. Like watching a puppy trip over its own feet as it learned to walk.

“Right,” he agreed, because he was just not going there with the kid. “So let’s imagine for a moment that you were going to have sex – I mean, anal sex – with another omega. A male. And that you were going to be inside him.”

“Right,” Jonn nodded eagerly. “That’d be cool.”

“Okay, so in order to make it comfortable for the other omega, what sort of things do you think he would want you to do?”

Jonn thought about that. Frowned. Thought some more. “He’d want me to get inside him pretty slowly, I think. Omegas self-lubricate, right?” he asked, and Kaidan nodded. “So maybe check that he’s already lubed. And maybe ask him if he’s comfortable. I saw a guy do that on a vid once.” 

“Great. Good answer.”

But just when Kaidan thought they might be making some progress, Jonn suddenly narrowed his eyes. “Oh, I see where you’re going with this,” he said suddenly. “After this, you’re going to flip this around and put the other omega inside me. And then you’re going to draw some cheap comparison between that, and having an alpha inside you, and then you’re going to declare that it’s all fine, and I should just be mated! Well no, sir! Not going to happen!”

Bugger… “Why not?” Kaidan asked innocently, still hoping he could salvage something from this. Jonn was obviously no idiot. Young and inexperienced, but sharp and savvy, and if he could just get him to open his mind a little… “You’ve seen people have sex on vids, right? Does it hurt them?”

“No.”

“And I’ve had sex with an alpha. And I can tell you, it didn’t hurt.”

Jonn watched him warily, suspicion in his eyes, as he turned that over in his mind. “That was with Commander Shepard, right?” he asked, and Kaidan fought not to let his relief and anticipation show. This was the first time Jonn had even stopped to consider the idea of an alpha mating. It was small progress, but progress none the less.

“That’s right,” he agreed. 

“How many times did you have sex with him?”

It was fair, Kaidan supposed, that if he was going to grill Jonn about his sex life, he give a little in return. “I don’t know exactly, but we went through my entire heat together. So probably around twenty, twenty five times.”

“And none of them hurt?”

How should he answer this honestly, but without scaring him? “The first few times were… a little uncomfortable.” He just left out the whole issue of the heat-induced pain he’d gone through. It had been excruciating, but none of that had been Shepard’s fault. “But after that, no, it didn’t hurt.”

“And he’s mated with another omega, right? That’s what he told me this morning.”

“That’s right. It was a long time ago.”

“Did he hurt the other omega?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Hmm…” Jonn lapsed into silence, thinking that over. And Kaidan allowed himself to feel just a little hopeful. Maybe Jonn was starting to come around, after all.

 

 

Once Jonn and Kaidan were closeted away together, Shepard borrowed Chakwas’ office and got back to his extranet search. He’d found nothing really useful last night, but he wasn’t giving up. He connected the data pad to the extra net, typed in the search parameters… and instantly a result popped up that he hadn’t seen last night. 

_‘Advice to Omegas In Heat’._

What the hell? It wasn’t tucked away on a secret site, wasn’t encrypted, wasn’t disguised as anything other than what it was, and he opened the link, wondering what he would find. Medical advice, maybe? Some fine sounding hoity-toity clap trap from a well-meaning but naïve beta? Or maybe…

“Holy fucking son of a bitch!”

Shepard leapt out of his seat, not quite able to believe what he was seeing. There, on the screen in front of him, was an abbreviated list of the advice that Kaidan had written out for the omega training. It was edited and paraphrased, but he’d given the training so many times by now that he recognised the information even in its altered state. The same emphasis, the same reasoning. But… shit, some of it had been twisted, and the advice on the page had a distinctly aggressive feel to it, overemphasizing the control an omega had over their alpha. It was encouraging omegas to arrange their own matings, to find an alpha friend or trustworthy colleague, a secure location, and basically to go for it.

Holy shit, someone was going to get seriously hurt if they tried this…

“Chakwas!” He opened the door and yelled again, and Chakwas came running. “Take a look at this.” He thrust the data pad at her, pacing the room in a panic as she read over it.

Her jaw dropped. “Oh god… you don’t think…”

“One of the omegas has leaked this. What the hell do they think they’re doing?”

“They’re going to get themselves badly injured,” Chakwas muttered, dropping into a chair. “And traumatised, at the same time. It’s all here, the consent form, the need to submit, what the knotting feels like… good god, ‘Ten things _not_ to say to your alpha,’” she read. “They’re treating it like a game!”

“What do we do?”

An idea seemed to occur to Chakwas then, and she typed rapidly on the data pad… and her face fell. “Nothing we can do, now,” she said hopelessly. “It’s not just on this site. It’s all over the place. On social networking sites, on dozens of copycat sites… Oh god, what have we done?”

 

 

“I’m sorry,” Kaidan said, as he stalked into Chakwas’ office later that day. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean for this to happen. I don’t even know how it did. I must have lost my mind. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay!” Jonn said cheerfully, hot on Kaidan’s heels. “You’ve helped me so much! You really have! Hi, Doctor,” he greeted Chakwas, grinning from ear to ear. “I figured out the solution to my heat!”

Which only made Kaidan groan and drop his head into his hand.

Shepard and Chakwas looked up from the desk, where they were glaring at a data pad, deep frowns on both their faces, and Kaidan realised they had interrupted something important. And grim. Great, just what they needed. More bad news. But, both consummate professionals, both Shepard and Chakwas quickly composed themselves and turned to address the problem at hand.

“And what have you decided?” Chakwas asked cautiously. “Are you willing to consider being mated?”

“Yes!” Jonn said eagerly. “Major Alenko said that I would get to choose which alpha I wanted to mate with!”

“Yes, that’s true,” Chakwas agreed. “We have a list of trained alphas-“

“I want to mate with Commander Shepard!”

Shepard’s jaw dropped. As did Chakwas’. 

“You… what?” Shepard looked helplessly at Kaidan, who shrugged, as if to say _‘I don’t know how that happened’._

“The Major said that you had sex with him _twenty five times_ when he was on heat, and you didn’t hurt him once! So I figured if you can do that, then I want you to be the one to mate with me!”

“Uh… right,” Shepard said, clearly searching for something to say, a diplomatic refusal that wouldn’t send Jonn scurrying back into his corner. “That’s, um… I’m not… I wasn’t actually one of the alphas on the list,” he said carefully, watching Jonn to gauge his reaction. “But there are others-“

“But there’s no reason why you couldn’t be on the list,” Jonn said brightly. “I know you’ve been real busy with the training and stuff – which I totally want to do now, because if we’re going to do this, I want to do it _right_. But this is really important to me, and like I said, I’ve worked really hard to turn my life around, and I wouldn’t be at all scared if it was you!”

The kid was still naïve as hell, Kaidan thought to himself, wishing he’d never gotten out of bed this morning. He’d been unable to resist watching the news, and it had only gotten worse. Homes being broken into because the omegas inside had forgotten to close the windows to conceal their scent. The police had all but given up on trying to control the alphas, mobs of them roaming the streets, driven mad by the scent of the omegas. He’d tried his hardest to help Jonn, but this crazy insistence that he mate with Shepard was giving him a headache. He just _wouldn’t listen_ , so caught up in his own head that he couldn’t hear what anyone else was saying to him. He had no idea how Shepard was going to get through to him that he wasn’t an option…

“Well, okay, I’ll… I’ll think about it,” Shepard said. 

And Kaidan’s jaw dropped.

“Have you eaten today?” he went on, while Kaidan’s head span. He’d _think about it?_ He was actually going to consider… well, of course, he was. He was Commander fucking Shepard, savior of the entire fucking galaxy. He couldn’t possibly leave this one sorry kid out of the equation. “Why don’t you go down to the cafeteria and get something to eat, and we’ll talk more later,” Shepard told the kid, and he grinned, nodded, and dashed out of the office towards the elevator.

“What the hell was that?” Kaidan demanded, as soon as Jonn was out of earshot. “You’ll think about what? You’re not actually going to mate with him!”

“Kaidan, he’s terrified, and he’s just grabbing onto whatever thread of hope he can find-“

“It’s not an option!”

“Chakwas, could you give us a minute?” Shepard said, and damn the man for sounding so calm. Chakwas merely nodded and hurried out of the office, but she was the least of Kaidan’s concerns. 

“Kaidan, I don’t want to mate with Jonn.”

“But you will, if you have to, right? That’s what you said about David. Because god forbid there’s someone in this galaxy that you can’t actually save.”

“God, Kaidan, don’t make me bite you,” he said, sounding fed up. 

“What?” Kaidan couldn’t believe he’d actually said that. “You keep your teeth to yourself, you fucking asshole! I can’t believe you’re even _considering_ this.”

Shepard sidestepped him suddenly, blocked his path and had him pinned up against the wall in a moment.

“Wow,” he breathed, his voice a husky purr. “I’ve never seen you get this hot and bothered. I hadn’t realised omegas got so possessive.”

But Kaidan was far from amused. “And how would you react if another alpha wanted to mate with me?”

The change in Shepard was instant. The grin vanished. He bared his teeth, a growl rumbling from deep in his throat. And his eyes flashed to golden.

“Never!” he growled emphatically.

“Shepard,” Kaidan said, suddenly cautious, as if trying to calm an angry dog. “Your eyes are golden.”

Said eyes widened in alarm, and Shepard took a deliberate step back. Breathed in. Out. In again, making an effort to do so slowly. And as Kaidan watched, the lines of gold bled out of his eyes, retreating to leave them their normal blue.

“No,” Shepard said, his voice suddenly hoarse. “No, you’re right. No mating with Jonn. There’ll be another way around this.”

He turned away, still struggling to control himself, and Kaidan saw his hands shake. Nothing he had read, anywhere on the extranet, had talked about that kind of reaction from an alpha when there were no omegas around going into their heats. So what the hell was going on?

“He needs an exceptionally calm, relatively experienced alpha,” Kaidan said, coming back to the point at hand. “We’ve still got a few days to talk him around.”

“Cortez,” Shepard said suddenly. “He’d be perfect. He’s mated with three omegas so far, and every one of them has said he’s been the perfect gentleman.” It was an odd description to give to someone who had fucked your brains out, but he understood what they meant. 

“Right. Perfect. So now we just have to convince Jonn of that.”

“I have a few ideas on how that might go,” Shepard said. Then he came over and put his hands on Kaidan’s shoulders. “Are you okay?”

“You can’t mate with anyone else,” he said, knowing it was unnecessary, but having to say it anyway. “Ever.”

Shepard nodded. “I don’t want anyone but you,” he said softly, leaning forward to kiss him. And Kaidan clung to him, not caring for the moment that they weren’t at home, that the door could open at any moment and anyone could find them like this. Shepard’s scent was stronger than usual, and he breathed it in, letting it calm him. When he felt steadier, he pulled back, ready to face the next crisis. 

“We have another problem,” Shepard said, and Kaidan merely nodded, having seen that one coming. Shepard retrieved a data pad from the table, the one he and Chakwas had been poring over when Kaidan had arrived. “Take a look at this.”

And so Kaidan did… and promptly burst out laughing. 

“You think this is funny?” Shepard asked sharply. 

“Funny? God, no. It’s perfect! I don’t know why we didn’t just do this in the first place. I mean, yeah, security breach and all, because this was obviously put there by one of the omegas, but they’ve done well, no names, no references to who has done this or how the instructions were developed. And it’s… a comprehensive list, I’ll give them that.” He gave Shepard a wry grin. “Your training sessions must be making an impact.”

“What? No, Kaidan… this is absurd! There’s barely enough information here to wipe your ass with! Any one who tries this will have no psychological preparation, no idea what to do if anything goes wrong. Someone’s going to get seriously injured.”

“No, it’s fine,” Kaidan said. “See, rule number three. _‘Do exactly whatever your alpha tells you to. I’m not kidding. That’s why you picked someone you trust in the first place.’_ It’s direct and to the point, and it covers all the necessary ground. Rule number six. _‘Knotting doesn’t hurt. Seriously. Let your alpha knot you early and often. It stops the pain of being unmated.’_ Okay, so it’s brief and rather more succinct than I would have made it, but it makes the point. And really, do you think any omega is going to attempt this without taking it seriously? They’ve seen what the alternative is. And from a psychological perspective, surely getting a few bruises and bites from a friend is still better than being gang raped by complete strangers.”

Shepard paused, a frown on his face. “I hadn’t looked at it that way,” he conceded, and Kaidan shrugged. 

“That’s because you’re looking at this from the perspective of trying to get everyone through it completely unscathed. That’s never going to happen. And I’m not saying this is going to work all the time. Plenty of people are still going to get it wrong, still going to piss off their alphas and get hurt. But if they get it right even half the time, then this one document has done more good to the entire world that we could do in a hundred years at this one clinic.”

Shepard didn’t look convinced. 

“Look… give it a couple of days,” Kaidan suggested. “By then, people will have started trying it out, and posting their feedback. And if the list needs modifying, we can offer suggestions. Anonymously.”

And it was a relief when he saw Shepard smile, even if it was a small, thin expression. “Now,” he said, his tone becoming sterner. “What are we going to do about Jonn?”

 

Later that night, back in the privacy of their apartment, Shepard sat sprawled on the sofa, Kaidan straddling his lap. Shepard was stroking Kaidan’s hair, his neck, running a thumb along his lips. 

“How the hell did I get lucky enough to have you running around after me?” he asked softly.

“Well… you saved my life on Virmire. Killed Saren. Came back from the dead. Destroyed the collector base. And I think there might have been something about killing a whole bunch of reapers, in the middle of all that. So yeah, maybe you’ve earned a little R&R. Maybe.”

“Hmm.” Shepard slid his hand around to cup Kaidan’s ass… and then another thought had his face heating with embarrassment. “Um… are you…?”

“Am I what?”

“Are you still sore?” Shepard asked, referring to their overzealous mating session a few days prior. And he was somewhat relieved when Kaidan laughed. Not just because it probably meant that his body was healing well, but because it meant he wasn’t holding any grudges over the incident. 

“Well, I’m not volunteering for any marathon fucking sessions,” he said ruefully. “But I think I could manage one solid knotting tonight.”

Shepard felt his cock swell in response, and he stood up, picking Kaidan up as he went, keeping his legs wrapped around his waist, and carried him to what had now become _their_ bedroom, the larger one with the bigger bed. His clothes were making a slow migration into Kaidan’s closet, the smaller room having gone unused for weeks now. And it felt… right, somehow. Familiar. Comforting.

He tumbled Kaidan onto the bed, inclined to take things slowly tonight. It had been a stressful day for both of them, with more to follow, and he wanted to savour these moments while they had them.

He slowly stripped Kaidan’s clothes off, kissing him all the while, inhaling his unique and intoxicating scent. He spent time just stroking him, his hands, his nipples, mapping the ripples of his rib cage with his fingers, while Kaidan reached down and stroked Shepard’s cock, feeling the slight swelling, the looser skin where his knot would form, applying pressure in just the right places, then reaching down and cupping his balls in his hot hand. They knew each other well by now, and it was hard to believe that it was less than a year ago that they had been uninterested shipmates and comrades, unaware of the strange twists that their lives would take, oblivious to the sensual delights just waiting to be discovered in each other’s bodies. 

And Shepard thought back to that strange possessiveness they had experienced during the day. It had clearly affected them both, expressing itself in different ways… though Shepard had to wonder what Kaidan would have done if he’d insisted on mating with Jonn. If anyone tried to mate with Kaidan, Shepard would simply kill them. Would Kaidan have killed Jonn? Or would his wrath have been directed at Shepard? It was exciting, but also maddeningly frustrating, to know so little about their own psychology, their own physiology. But, Shepard was sure, something was happening to the two of them, as a result of spending so much time together, of sharing their bodies on such a regular basis. Something powerful and irreversible. But rather than worry him, he felt… liberated. More at peace than ever before in his life. 

“I want you,” he told Kaidan finally, having mapped his body from head to toe with curious fingertips and sensual tongue, and Kaidan rolled over onto his stomach, spreading his legs as Shepard settled in between them. It was a toss up, now, which position they would take. Kaidan preferred to look at Shepard during their joining, but he also loved having Shepard snuggled up behind him while they were knotted, his body wrapped fully around Kaidan’s, around and inside. It took less time to stretch Kaidan, these days, his body used to the frequent invasions, and only a minute or two later, Shepard was buried deeply in him, drawing moans from both of them as he thrust slowly, deeply, pulling out almost fully then pushing home again. He was careful not to be too rough, aware of Kaidan’s lingering soreness, and then he felt his climax rising almost too quickly, pressed himself deeply inside, and groaned out his pleasure, feeling Kaidan ripple around him as his knot swelled.

God, how many people were missing out on this pleasure, both simple and profound, due to their mistaken prejudices and misguided beliefs. He pressed his knot deeper, drawing a cry and a climax from his lover, savoring the feel of the heat and tightness around him.

Some time later, Shepard lay on his back, Kaidan curled up against his shoulder.

“Hey, Shepard?” Kaidan asked, his voice deliciously sleepy.

“Hmm?”

“Do alphas ever bottom in bed?”

It was such an unexpected question, so completely out of left field that Shepard was rendered speechless for a moment. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “It would be logistically difficult. I mean, even if you got off inside me, I’d still have to be inside you to finish.”

“Hm, yeah. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Are you saying you want to fuck me?” he asked, not entirely sure if he was kidding or not.

“Not necessarily,” Kaidan said, his voice a tired mumble. “I was just thinking about it. And it feels so good when you do it to me, I just wondered if maybe you were missing out on something. But maybe alphas just aren’t built for it.”

“It’s an interesting idea,” Shepard admitted, though if he was honest with himself, the idea made him more than a little nervous. “But maybe the experimentation should just wait for some other night, okay?”

“Okay,” Kaidan agreed, then a wide yawn split his mouth open. “G’night Shepard. Love you.”

Shepard’s heart skipped a beat. “G’night Kaidan.” He hesitated. “Love you, too.”


	9. Let's Try Plan C

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of those chapters where there’s scary, kind-of-disturbing alpha sex. It’s consensual, but remember that even consensual sex can go badly. Still, I figure if you’ve read what I did to Kaidan back in the first fic, you should be pretty okay with this.

“Okay, here’s another one,” Kaidan said, selecting the link. He was searching through the comments from omegas who had tried out the ‘Advice to Omegas in Heat’ protocol, two days after the list had been published, and so far there had been mixed results. “This one was a woman. She says ‘Seriously, when the instructions say don’t get off the bed, then for fuck’s sake, _don’t get off the bed!_ My alpha didn’t hurt me, but he did break both my closet and my wall in an effort to barricade the door.’”

Shepard let out a chuckle. “I wonder who’ll be paying for the repairs.” 

They were waiting for the current group of trainees to arrive. Thankfully, Jonn had agreed to join the group, though they had yet to convince him that Shepard wasn’t the right choice for his mating. A nurse bustled through the room, taking tea and coffee into the training room, while another carried a bundle of laundry out of the mating room. The last session in there had finished a few hours ago, and the staff were cleaning it out for the next round. All the sheets and towels had to be sealed in air-tight containers before being transported to the laundry, to prevent accidentally triggering an alpha’s reaction to the scent.

“Hey, Shepard,” a voice called, and he looked round. Namir, one of the alphas, had just arrived. “You seen Chakwas anywhere?”

“She was in her office a minute ago. She’s not there now?”

Namir shook his head. “No. Probably just stepped out for a minute. I can hang around for a bit.” He took a seat on the far couch, flicking through a magazine.

“Oh, this one’s not so good,” Kaidan said, still focused on the data pad. “’Got a message halfway through the mating from my (beta) bf. Alpha saw it and went apeshit. Nineteen stitches. Your instructions are a huge fail.’”

“Maybe we need to re-emphasise just how possessive alphas get,” Shepard suggested. He looked up, and nodded to the omegas who had started arriving. “In the same room as yesterday,” he said, pointing to the training room. “We’ll get started in about five minutes.”

Janice, one of the nurses, came out of the private suite just then, heading for Chakwas’ office. “Doctor?” she called. “We’ve run out of liquid soap in the ensuite bathroom. Is there another bottle somewhere?”

She reached the waiting room, and Shepard felt his cock swell suddenly. It took him a moment to realise that his head had snapped up and his gaze was fixed on the woman. She was a beta – all the nurses in this wing were – but she smelled of…

Shepard had moved before he was aware of it, crossing the room to her. She was wiping her hands on a cloth, and he snatched it and tossed it to the floor, then grabbed her hands. Brought them to his face and inhaled…

“What the hell is on your hands?” he growled, feeling his cock throb. 

“Nothing!” the terrified woman replied. “I’ve just been cleaning out the suite-“

“Oh god, Janice, tell me you washed your hands before you came out here!” Chakwas had appeared in the doorway, and was watching them both with a horrified expression.

Out of the corner of his eye, Shepard saw Namir, the other alpha, cross the room and pick up the cloth he had tossed away. He brought it to his face and sniffed… then dropped the cloth and focused on Shepard instead. The scent was no where near as strong as it had been last time – Shepard managed to force himself to let go of the woman’s hands – but a fight was still more than likely. Namir was a lot smaller than him, maybe five-eight and lightly built, but he was an alpha, and therefore a threat.

“Shepard! You don’t need to do this.” Kaidan. Kaidan was here… the realisation was both calming and inflaming. Kaidan was near another alpha… He growled, rounding on Namir, whose eyes were golden, he noted in passing, wondering if his own were.

But Namir was no where near as experienced a fighter as he was – he was just a service chief, had only been in the Alliance a few years, and Shepard dodged right as he came for him, landing a heavy smack to the side of his head. Namir collided with the wall gracelessly, dazed, and when he turned around again, his nose was bleeding. He looked Shepard up and down… then backed away. Kept going, as everyone watched on, until he’d backed all the way out of the wing.

Shepard turned to find the nurse… but she was gone.

“Shepard?” Kaidan appeared in front of him, looking surprised. “You okay?”

“What color are my eyes?”

“Blue.”

Interesting… “I’m fine,” he said, feeling the remaining fog clear. “Where did the nurse go?”

“You don’t need to know,” Kaidan said, causing Shepard to chuckle. 

“I’m not going to go chasing after her,” he said, amused. “The scent was barely detectable.”

“Yeah, well, Namir didn’t seem to think so.”

Shepard saw the group of omegas, crowded into the doorway of the training room, looking both scared and relieved. “How about we get this training underway?” he said, mentally counting heads. They were one short, and he glanced around to see if Jonn had arrived yet… 

And was startled to discover him standing near Chakwas, clinging to a wall, white as a sheet.

“Jonn? You okay?”

“Yeah,” he said, clearly far from okay. “I’m just going to talk to Chakwas for a minute.”

“Okay. Don’t take too long. You’ve only got a couple of days to finish your training.”

Jonn nodded, then scurried off into Chakwas’ office.

 

 

“He’s refusing to go through with the mating,” Chakwas said tiredly, later that day. Jonn had sat through the training session, taking a seat at the back of the room and refusing to participate at all. And now, it seemed the reason for his behaviour was Shepard’s minor scuffle that morning. “He’s scared of you. He’d gotten it into his head than the mating was just like regular sex, only with an alpha. Seeing you get all worked up frightened him.”

“Where is he now?” Jonn had scurried off at the end of the session, disappearing out of the ward in a hurry.

“Cortez was here when Jonn fled. I asked him to go find him, maybe buy him a coffee, see if he could calm him down a bit.”

“Does he know Cortez is an alpha?”

Chakwas shrugged. “I doubt it. They’ve never met before.” Then her eyes narrowed. “Why do you ask?”

Shepard shrugged. He might just be clutching at straws. “Just wondering if that might work in our favor.”

 

Downstairs in the cafeteria, Cortez set a cup of coffee down in front of the trembling lad, before taking a seat and adding sugar to his own cup. “Jonn, was it?” he asked, and the boy nodded. He’d gotten the bare bones of his story from Chakwas before chasing after him – the boy was an omega, terrified of going into heat and he’d witnessed Shepard ‘go alpha’ that morning, which had destroyed his last bit of courage to go through with the mating. That, at least, Cortez could understand. An angry Shepard was a scary thing, and he was grateful he’d never been on the receiving end of Shepard’s wrath. Hell, even reapers came off second best when the man got fired up.

“I’m Steve. You’re an omega?”

The boy nodded again.

“And you’re due to go through your heat soon?”

“I have two pills left,” Jonn mumbled, not touching his coffee. So he had three, maybe four days until his heat would start. He was running out of time. Not least because the hospital needed a signed consent form to proceed with the mating, and if he refused to sign one on time, he would have no choice but to go through the heat alone. For all that they were breaking dozens of regs here, not even they would risk being charged with rape. Every single omega had to sign the form at least 48 hours prior to their heat if they wanted to be mated.

“That’s intense,” Cortez said gently. “A heat’s a scary thing.” 

“I’m not scared,” Jonn mumbled, chewing on his nails. And Cortez instantly recognised the type. He was young. Stubborn, not due to any ill will, but because life had pushed him around, and he’d had to learn to push back.

“You saw a fight this morning, huh?” Cortez hadn’t been around for it, but he’d heard about the last one, and didn’t expect that this one had been any better. Jonn nodded. “You must have seen a lot of fights.” Jonn shrugged. He noticed the coffee, and dumped four spoons of sugar into it. “What was different about this one?”

A pause. A frown. “Cos it was Shepard. The Major said he was supposed to be nice during a heat, but he still got all angry. I’ve seen angry alphas before. They’re mean.”

“You’ve seen people get hurt?”

Another nod.

Hmm… “This might be a personal question, but… have you ever had sex before?”

Jonn opened his mouth to answer… then lowered his eyes to the table again. Shook his head. Folded his arms and hunched in on himself.

“Have you wanted to?”

Jonn snorted. “Of course. Who doesn’t? But I lived in the Terminus Systems. There’s no one out there who wants to have sex with a skinny poor kid. Hookers would, but I can’t afford to pay for it.” He glanced up at Cortez. “I wouldn’t mind it, though. I even wouldn’t mind bottoming. Everyone says omegas are built for it. And there was this guy I used to see in Afterlife. It’s a club,” he explained, at Cortez’s blank expression. “He swore by it, used to tell me about the hot guys who came to see him. Bought him drinks. He said omegas get off even better if they bottom.” Now that he had started talking, he didn’t seem the slightest bit inclined to stop, and Cortez simply let him ramble, hoping to pick something useful out of the stream of information that might help him get over his fear. 

“And maybe you’re wondering why I never tried that. I mean, there’s gotta be guys who are willing to do a bottom, right, even if he’s skinny and small. A few guys asked me. But they were all… they stank. They were drunk all the time, and shit, if I’m gonna do it, I wanna enjoy it, not just be someone else’s fuck-toy. That’s almost as bad as turning hooker myself, and there was no way I was gonna do that. I wanted to make something of myself. Not easy to do, out there, so that’s why I tried to become a merc. But Shepard stopped me, and I guess I’m pretty glad he did. But I still ended up being stuck up shit creek without a paddle. You know,” he said suddenly, sitting up straighter. “It wouldn’t be so bad if I’d at least had sex before. Cos then I’d at least know what to expect. I mean, I know the alphas get all possessive and ‘Don’t leave, don’t reject me!’ and shit, but really, if you just lie there and let them get on with it, then they have no reason to get all angry about anything. But I don’t even know what it feels like, and what if it really does hurt, and then they have that whole knotting thing… I mean, that doesn’t bother me, not all the stigma and stuff that everyone says you’re not supposed to do it, cos heaps of people did out in the Systems, and so long as you could point a gun straight, no one was gonna give you a hard time about it, but everyone says they’re really big, the knots, I mean, and once you’re in the middle of a heat, it’s not like you can say ‘oops, changed my mind, I don’t really like knotting, can we stop now,’ cos then the alpha breaks your arms and beats you to death with them.”

He stopped, took a breath, then drained his coffee cup in one go. “That’s great coffee,” he said. “Can I get another cup?”

“Yeah,” Cortez agreed, almost relieved to have an excuse to leave the table for a moment. “I’ll get it.”

As he stood in the queue, he replayed what Jonn had said. It was hard to know what to believe and what not to. Half of it was sheer bravado, but there had been some useful insights into his way of thinking. And the strange conclusion that Cortez was reaching was glaringly obvious, now that he’d seen it. 

Jonn needed to have sex with someone before his heat hit. Despite whatever information they could give him, the actual experience was still a huge unknown for him. Add to that the fact that he would have very little control over it, once the hormones were raging, and you had a potent blend for inspiring terror. 

But given the time frame they were working on, it meant Jonn’s first toe-dip into the world of all things sexual needed to be sometime today.

He needed to talk to Chakwas.

 

Kaidan glared at the vid screen. He was supposed to be working – he still had official duties coordinating the rebuilding efforts on Earth – but with all the dramas with the omegas lately, both at the hospital and on the news, he’d been getting next to nothing done. Once the advice had come out about how omegas could get through their heats, there had been a predictable backlash from the masses. Betas were standing up left, right and center, telling omegas that they should exercise restraint, avoid mating, show some decency. Some had gone so far as to suggest that omegas who engaged in ‘inappropriate sexual practices’ should be socially ostracized, fired from their jobs – despite the self-determination act making it illegal to fire an omega due to either their gender or their sexual preferences, and Kaidan was outraged at the blindness of people. Alphas had spent centuries telling omegas what they could and couldn’t do, running their lives for them, and now, in the name of ‘liberty’ and ‘decency’, the betas were trying to do exactly the same thing, using bullying and guilt to try and shame omegas into doing what the betas wanted. It was simply the opposite side of the argument using the same tactics to get the same result – quiet, docile omegas who did exactly what they were told.

The alphas had been surprisingly quiet on the whole issue, and, aside from the predictable rabble offering themselves out as mating partners, it seemed that a lot of alphas had simply gone into hiding. Which was possibly not a bad thing. Now that the omegas were taking control of their heats, the parliament had postponed talks on amending the self-determination act, to see how things panned out for a day or two. Which meant it was still illegal to mate an omega without consent, and plenty of alphas were probably just trying to lay low and avoid the scent of any unwary omegas.

A woman on the screen was speaking to the reporter with wide, earnest eyes. “Omegas should not give in to these urges. They should stand firm and choose decency! Endure the pain of the heat with dignity and avoid embracing this moral decay.”

An omega shoved her way in front of the camera, glaring at the woman. “You try having both your legs cut off with a chain saw, and then tell me how much dignity there is in pain. Cos that’s what it feels like, bitch!”

The sound was cut off suddenly, and Kaidan turned around to see Shepard standing in the office doorway, pointing his omni-tool at the screen. “Why do you keep watching this?” he asked mildly. “It’s just the opinions of a bunch of bigoted idiots, and it only makes you angry.”

“Maybe I like being angry,” he said. “It’s better than feeling like a victim. Which is all they want us to be.”

“Well, I have some half-way good news, at least.” Shepard came forward and sat on the edge of the desk. “Cortez came back from his chat with Jonn.”

That got Kaidan’s attention. “How is he?”

“A lot calmer than he was this morning. Somehow, between the two of them, they came up with the plan that Jonn should lose his virginity _before_ his heat, to let him experience sex, but stay a little more in control of the whole situation.”

“With Cortez?” It was everything they had been hoping for, a way to make Jonn more comfortable, but also accept another alpha in place of Shepard. 

Shepard nodded. “They’re in the private suite right now.”

Kaidan let out a startled, but pleased laugh. “The man works fast…”

 

 

Cortez gritted his teeth as Jonn stroked his cock. The boy was nervous, his hand shaking just slightly, but he’d been eager to learn. So eager, in fact, that Cortez was having trouble controlling himself. Jonn had been startled to hear that he was an alpha – he’d assumed he must have been an omega, apparently having subscribed to the social myth that all alphas were hard headed, impulsive dare-devils. But, to be fair, coming from the Terminus Systems, that was quite possibly true in that part of the galaxy. 

The private suite was vacant for the afternoon, so they’d been allowed to use it for a couple of hours, but when asked when he’d like to begin the experiment, Jonn had hesitated. Which was Cortez’s only clue that the enthusiasm he’d expressed for the plan was yet more bravado. The boy was legally an adult, but far from used to making adult decisions about his life, and Cortez realised he might have to go a lot slower than he’d first anticipated – and he’d expected slow to begin with!

But once they were alone in the room, Jonn had surprised him, once again proving that he was no idiot, and that he not only understood the situation, but he had the courage to take responsibility for it. Cortez had asked him if he’d really wanted to do this – it wasn’t too late to back out. But Jonn had looked him in the eye, all trace of his usual manic energy gone, taken a deep breath, and simply said ‘Where else am I going to go?’” And, he’d admitted with a shy grin, he thought Cortez had a sexy voice. It wasn’t the greatest compliment he’d ever received, but it was endearing none the less, and Jonn had followed it up with a firm assurance that he intended to follow all of Cortez’s instructions to make sure this went as well as possible.

He’d been nervous, when Cortez had stepped up close to kiss him. Large men standing close to you, where Jonn came from, was almost never a good thing, and Cortez had taken it slow, kissing, then touching, hands along shoulders, along arms, then under his shirt, just a little. And Jonn had jumped, tensed, and his gaze had darted about the room as if looking for an escape route. 

Another round of questioning. Was this alright? Did he want to continue? A determined nod, and another round of touching began.

It had continued that way, until they’d both been shirtless and Jonn had declared that he wanted to see what an alpha’s cock looked like. He’d seen them on the vids, but never in person, and he’d heard they were… large.

Which was how Cortez ended up lying on the bed, hands clenched in the sheets, while Jonn explored his throbbing erection with a childlike innocence and curiosity that made Cortez want to come _now_.

“Does that seriously fit inside me?” Jonn asked, awe and apprehension in his voice, and Cortez was grateful for the other omegas he had mated with, because if he’d been asked that same question a month ago, he honestly wouldn’t have known the answer.

“Yes,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. “But slowly. A little at a time.”

“And this is where the knot comes from?” Jonn touched the slightly bulbous base, causing Cortez to flinch.

But Jonn wasn’t put off. He was a quick study, as Cortez had quickly figured out. “You liked that,” Jonn said, a note of wonder in his voice, and somehow the realisation that he could cause Cortez pleasure made him bolder. He stroked the base again, then slid his hand around to Cortez’s balls. “What about this?”

“That’s good,” Cortez said breathlessly. 

And then the stroking stopped, the hand withdrawn on a bashful pause. “Could you do that to me?”

Cortez looked up and saw the open expectation on his face, innocently wanting to enjoy this, but so hesitant to ask for his own pleasure, and he couldn’t help but grin. “I think you’d have to take your pants off, first,” he said with a smirk, and he’d never seen anyone get undressed so quickly in his life. Jonn lay back on the bed, naked and grinning, and spread his legs. And Cortez ignored the throbbing in his cock as he sat up and reached for the boy, running his hand slowly up his thigh to give him plenty of warning. And then he was stroking his small cock, sticking up straight and proud, cupping the balls underneath… “Could I try something else?” he asked. “I think you’ll like it.”

Jonn nodded, his face flushed, his breathing fast, and so Cortez leaned down and ran his tongue up the boy’s erection.

“Fuck! Oh fuck, do that again!” And so he did, then wrapped his lips around the head, sucked it into his mouth… and wasn’t entirely surprised when he felt Jonn come into his mouth, his small body jerking as he cried out.

“Sorry, was that too soon?” he asked immediately. “We could try it again. I’ll wait longer next time-“

“It’s okay. Really. You’re allowed to come as quickly and as often as you like.”

“What about during the heat?” The question was anxious, those eyes darting about again. 

“Especially during the heat. There’s nothing an alpha likes more than making his omega come.”

Jonn’s eyebrows rose almost off his forehead. “Really?”

“Really.”

“And you’re going to be the one with me, right?”

It was the third time he’d asked that since they’d come into the room, and Cortez couldn’t help his amused smile. “That’s right. It’s going to be me.”

Jonn eyed his cock. “So when do we get to the bit where you’re inside me?”

“Whenever you like.”

Jonn slid his hand around and felt his own ass. And wasn’t that just sexy as hell. “I’m pretty wet,” he said, unsure of himself. “Could we try it now?”

“Sure, if you like.”

“What do I have to do?”

“Turn onto your side. Facing away from me.” Jonn did, then Cortez slid closer behind him. On his way out of Chakwas’ office, Shepard had pulled him aside, told him that when they weren’t in heat, an omega’s body needed a lot more stretching to accommodate an alpha, needed to be penetrated a lot slower. And even as he had nodded, filing the information away, he’d wondered just what else Shepard and Kaidan had discovered between the two of them. With all the taboos surrounding alpha-omega sex, there was very little information out there – even the pornography channels shied away from it – so learning anything about their own sexuality was almost impossible for the average alpha. And, not for the first time, Cortez had thought that all the social taboos were more than a little ridiculous.

He carefully inserted a finger into Jonn’s opening, then two, stretching him as Shepard had suggested. A third finger, checking to make sure Jonn was comfortable, increasing the pressure slowly and gradually… then he glanced down at his erection… and tried a fourth finger. Jonn grunted in protest, his passage squeezing tightly, but Cortez persisted, waiting until he relaxed, trying to find his prostate, to let him enjoy this as much as possible. And then he removed his hand and positioned his cock at Jonn’s entrance. “I’m going to put myself inside you now,” he warned him, and Jonn nodded eagerly. Cortez glanced at the boy’s erection, which was hard and throbbing again, and let himself relax just a little. Seemed he was enjoying it after all. 

It seemed to take forever to slide his erection in, the tightness blissful around his cock, but he was ever mindful that this was Jonn’s first time, and that he was nervous and inexperienced… and when Jonn started grabbing at the blankets, Cortez thought he had done something wrong…

“I’m going to come,” Jonn yelped out, his voice tight and high.

“Yes. Do it,” Cortez encouraged, and then he almost had to climax himself, as Jonn’s passage tightened around him as the boy came, his muscles rippling along Cortez’s shaft in waves. 

He still wasn’t fully inside, but he paused to let Jonn recover, then resumed the slow back and forth rocking, pressing deeper, then deeper still.

“Oh fuck, that’s huge,” Jonn complained, and Cortez paused immediately. 

“Do you want me to stop?”

“Um… how much further do you have to go?”

Cortex glanced down. “Less than an inch.”

Jonn whined a little. “Keep going,” he said finally. “I want to do this right.”

“Am I hurting you?”

“Um… no. It just feels really full. Really, really full. But keep going. I want to do this.”

He did, moving slowly and carefully, then he finally breathed a sigh of relief as he felt himself press his groin firmly against Jonn’s buttocks. “That’s it,” he said huskily. “I’m in.”

“Wow,” Jonn said, then let out a giggle. “I’m having sex,” he said, sounding awfully pleased with himself, and Cortez had to laugh.

“Yes, you are,” he agreed. “Do you want to try the next bit?”

“What’s the next bit?”

“This.” Cortez drew back, then thrust back in, firmly, but not too hard. Jonn let out a delighted cry, grabbing the sheets again. 

“Oh, yeah. I definitely like that bit.”

Cortez kept it up for a little while… then paused again. “Jonn? Do you think you’re ready to try knotting yet?”

“Yes,” came the instant reply. “Feels like I’m gonna come again…”

“Then let’s do that first,” Cortez suggested, struggling to hold himself back. He thrust more quickly this time, and also reached around to stroke Jonn’s cock, and then he was coming again, his little body bucking against Cortez. 

“Fuck, that was awesome.” He caught his breath a little. “Okay, you can knot me now.”

“You remember the training?” Cortez asked. “It’s going to feel very strange, like you’re being stretched a lot. But it shouldn’t hurt.”

“Right.”

“And once I start to knot you, I can’t stop,” he said, making sure Jonn was listening. And Jonn nodded. He reached up and took Jonn’s hand in his own. Jonn squeezed his fingers. 

“Okay. I’m ready.”

“Sure?”

“Yep.”

“Alright.” Cortez started thrusting again, feeling his climax begin to peak almost immediately, now that he didn’t have to hold back. He felt his balls tighten, felt the rush of pleasure shoot through him… and then slipped an arm around Jonn’s waist and pressed himself deep into his body, waiting for the knot to swell.

Jonn grunted in surprise as he felt the first wave of pressure. Squeezed Cortez’s hand harder, felt the knot swell some more, and Cortez had the fleeting thought that this was going rather well…

And then Jonn panicked.

“No! Stop, I can’t do this!” He struggled, tried to pull away, but the knot was already too big to slide out of him. Cortez held him firmly, both arms wrapped around the skinny body beneath him as he frantically tried to calm the boy. 

“Jonn! Don’t struggle. Please, you’re going to hurt yourself.”

“Take it out! Oh god, it’s too big. Take it out. Take it out. Please!”

“I can’t take it out,” Cortez said, fighting to keep his voice calm. And thank god this hadn’t happened during Jonn’s heat. His alpha would have responded far less amicably to having his omega try to escape… but then again, this made it unlikely that there would be a repeat performance during his heat at all. He had to get Jonn to calm down!

“I’m don’t want to hurt you,” he said into Jonn’s ear, feeling his knot swell to its full size. “Just relax. This will all be over soon. Take a deep breath. Breathe, Jonn.”

“Help me!” Jonn whispered, tears falling from his eyes, and Cortez felt his heart break. He looked like a frightened rabbit, caught and pinned by a fox, his hands paddling helplessly at the blankets. “Please let me go… please…”

“You’re going to be fine, Jonn. You’re strong. You’re brave. You’re on the way to making something great with your life. This is just a little roadblock, and as soon as you’re past it, you’re going to go on to be even stronger and braver than ever. And the way we’re going to get through this is that you’re going to take a deep breath… deep breath, Jonn.” He inhaled slowly, his body tense, but no longer struggling. “And out again. And then you’re going to let go of the sheets. Open your hands, Jonn. Just do what I say, and everything will be fine…”

His hands slowly opened, releasing their death grip on the sheets.

“And now you’re going to relax all the muscles in your abdomen, because you’re really tense, and that’s making the knot feel a lot bigger than it really is. Okay, Jonn? Deep breath, that’s good, and just relax.” 

He did, the tight squeeze around Cortez’s knot easing off, and his body went limp.

“And now we’re just going to lie here for a little while,” Cortez said, keeping his voice soothing and gentle. “We’re just going to lie really still, and this’ll all be over soon. You’re going to be fine. Doing really well.”

They lay in silence, Cortez listening to Jonn’s rapid breathing, stroking his arm, relieved when he finally seemed to calm down a little more.

“It actually doesn’t hurt,” Jonn said at length, his voice thin and quiet. 

“Really?” Well, fuck, that was a relief. Because, for all the assurances from other omegas that he hadn’t hurt them, this had looked pretty damn painful from where Cortez was. 

“Really,” Jonn confirmed, sounding a little surprised himself. “It’s a really weird feeling, but it doesn’t actually hurt.”

“I’m glad.”

They lay in silence for a while longer. 

“Is this it?” Jonn asked. 

“Is this what?”

”This. Is this being knotted?”

“Yep. This is it.”

“And that’s full size and everything. It’s not going to get any bigger?”

“Nope, this is all there is.”

Jonn gave a slight wriggle, shifting his ass against Cortez. “It’s really not so bad,” he said, sounding slightly confused. “I thought there would be more to it.”

“How so?”

“Well, I’ve heard people say it’s the most fantastic feeling ever. Like exploding stars and fireworks and shit. This is kind of… disappointing, actually.”

Well, wasn’t that a blow to his ego. But in reality, Cortez knew, it was because he was trying to stay utterly still, not wanting to put any extra pressure on Jonn’s body. But if he wanted more…

“Is that what you wanted to feel? The ‘fireworks and shit’?”

“Does that really happen?” Jonn asked, sounded cynical and jaded. 

“Sure does,” Cortez said. “Want me to show you?”

“Okay.”

And so Cortez pressed his hips forward, shoving his knot directly into contact with Jonn’s prostate. And the boy came instantly, so surprised he didn’t even cry out, just gasped a breath in as his body tensed, then convulsed on the wave of pleasure. The climax passed, and he sagged into the mattress. “Fucking hell…”

“Did you like it?”

“Do it again…”

 

 

“So you’ve decided to go ahead with the mating?” Chakwas asked Jonn, as the young man bounced around her office. 

“Yup. I need to sign a consent form, right? Can I do that now? Can I stop taking my suppressants now, too? I took one this morning, but I have two left. Do I have to take them, or can I stop?”

Chakwas raised an eyebrow at Cortez, standing calmly by the door. “So the practice run went well, then?”

Cortez smiled. “You mean you actually had doubts? I’m hurt.”


	10. In Public

Kaidan stared at the data pad, not quite able to believe his eyes. “You have got to be kidding me!”

“What’s that?” Shepard asked, looking up from his own work. It was a week since ‘The List’ as it was now known, the page of instructions for omegas mating, had been published, and it had been a media circus all the way through. Protests, both for and against omega rights, public debates, which often devolved into the participants hurling insults at each other, more media reports, this time of the most successful ways to get mated, and a handful of alphas were now speaking out, saying they had participated in non-violent matings, and claiming that alpha rights had been suppressed, that they were as entitled to a sex life as anyone else. In its current form, it was a peaceful and respectful recognition of sexual desire, but in the wrong hands, it could turn into an argument for public lewdness. They’d have to wait and see. 

“They’ve invented a… god, what is it, even?” Kaidan turned the data pad sideways, tilting his head. “It’s a… synthetic alpha penis, I suppose. They’re calling it the ‘Omega Mate Pro’. It’s got an inflatable knot.”

“What?”

Kaidan handed the data pad to him. And good god, there it was, the picture showing the device with the knot inflated, in the hands of a grinning, half dressed omega.

“What the hell to they do with that?”

“Apparently it’s for omegas who are married to betas. There have been problems, because the omegas didn’t want to go through the pain option, but the only other way was for them to cheat on their partners. So some company invented… that.”

Shepard scrolled down the page to where the device’s instructions were written. “Self administration is extremely difficult and is not recommended, but this device can be easily used by your beta partner to see you smoothly through your heat. The unique oil-filled bulb can be inflated using the hand-held pump, to give you a genuine knotting experience, without requiring the services of an alpha.”

He stopped suddenly, as an idea occurred to him. “Why the hell didn’t someone invent one of these years ago?”

Kaidan shrugged. “There was never a market for them. I mean, really, what self-respecting omega would have _wanted_ to try knotting, before all this happened? Apparently they’re selling fast, though,” he added, as Shepard handed the data pad back. 

“I wonder…” 

“Oh god. You’ve got that glint in your eye,” Kaidan complained. “The one that means you’re about to launch into some crazy, reckless scheme that’ll turn the galaxy on it’s head.”

“I was just thinking-“

“That’s always a bad sign.”

Shepard stuck his tongue out at Kaidan, who grinned. 

“Keep that up, and I’ll have to come over there and do something about it…”

“Back to the point at hand,” Shepard said insistently, “What if they could invent something similar for alphas to use? Or the opposite of one of those, I guess. A… synthetic sheath. That expanded around the knot, but still applied pressure to it.”

“You want them to invent a sex toy so alphas can masturbate?”

“Why not? Regardless of what happens at the end of this suppressant crisis, there are still a hell of a lot of sexually frustrated alphas running around. And if they can invent one for omegas, then why shouldn’t the alphas have one?”

Kaidan thought about that. “It’s actually not a bad idea.” He typed rapidly on the data pad, then grinned. “Done.”

“What’s done?”

“An anonymous suggestion sent to the manufacturer. That they invent just that sort of product.”

Shepard looked stunned. “You’re incorrigible.”

“Hey, don’t look at me. It was your idea.”

 

 

The private wing at the hospital was relatively quiet, now. All the omegas had been through their heats, including Jonn, who had come out of the experience pleased and bashful and unable to keep his eyes off Cortez. Shepard had expected the older man to be no more than patiently tolerant of the crush… but to his amazement, he seemed to have developed a strange fondness for Jonn. And it was something of a relief that they didn’t have any more omegas to treat, as he wasn’t sure that Cortez would have been willing to mate with a new partner. His latest one seemed to have made quite the impression…

Chakwas was moving her office back into the surgical wing, the private suite once again freed up for the use of VIPs, and things seemed to be returning to normal.

Shepard had written a strongly worded letter to Alliance Headquarters regarding its treatment of omegas under their command. A reply was still pending.

Mitron Pharmaceuticals had issued a profuse apology for its failures to its customers, but had assured everyone that the manufacture of suppressants would be up and running again in another three months. 

Kaidan was due to go through his next heat in two.

But he wasn’t worried, he had told Shepard late one night. He had the world’s most attentive alpha not just willing, but chomping at the bit to mate him again. And Shepard had laughed, already feeling his erection swell at the thought. It would be a day to remember, he had said. And he would be honoured to participate the second time around.

And then Kaidan had reminded him that ‘The List’ had instructed omegas to let their alphas knot them ‘early and often’. 

Shepard had been only too happy to oblige.

But the public furor over the behaviour of the omegas was still in a frenzy, and a rally had been organised in central London, a thinly veiled excuse for the betas to vent their disgust at the biological workings of the ‘inferior’ omegas.

And, at seeing Kaidan’s anger at the remarks and ignorance of some of the scheduled speakers, Shepard had suggested that they attend.

 

 

London was chaos. The crowds were huge, banners with various slogans being waved, various groups in the crowd chanting battle cries, opposing sides trying to drown each other out. On one platform, a woman stood up in front of a microphone, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt with the word ‘OMEGA’ blazoned across the front. “I am an omega,” she shouted to the crowd. “I have been ashamed of being an omega for years. But today, I take back my dignity. I take back my liberty! I take back my right to be who I was born to be!” She put her arm around a heavy-set man, the word ‘ALPHA’ printed on his t-shirt. “This is my alpha!” the woman cried. “And I love him!”

“Nice to see that both sides of the argument came out to play,” Shepard said to Kaidan, expecting him to be pleased with the display. But instead, he was frowning, even more troubled than usual. He’d been quiet, lately, concerned about the ongoing tensions between genders, still watching the late night reports of omegas being raped and brutalized, and Shepard had been at a loss for how to help. Public debate on the topic was only getting stronger, but he didn’t see anything they could do to steer the conversations in the right direction. ‘The List’ had helped the omegas a lot, but Kaidan clearly still felt that something was lacking.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, determined to get to the bottom of this.

“Do you ever think maybe we should have done that?” Kaidan asked, gesturing to the woman, who was now rallying the crowd, going on with her speech while other omegas climbed onto the platform to support her. “Just stand up in front of the world and say what we really think? It just… god, I know we had enough reasons not to. But it just bothers me, that we had the guts to fight Saren, to face down the reapers, to stand in the gap between the Krogan and the Turians, but we couldn’t stand up against our own species.”

So that’s what the problem was. Shepard had discouraged such a public declaration time and time again over the months. And perhaps, if he had been paying more attention, he would have realised how much it really meant to his partner.

Because they were partners, now. Lovers, boyfriends… and maybe one day soon, Shepard would be able to add ‘fiancés’ to that list.

But one thing at a time.

“You think we should say something publicly?”

“You’re Commander Fucking Shepard,” Kaidan griped, though there was no real sting in the words. “If the world won’t listen to you, who will they listen to?”

Shepard looked around… and saw a stand nearby, with a woman – very likely a beta – spouting narrow minded bullshit about the moral decay of omegas, and the need to maintain decency for the sake of the species.

“Come here,” he said to Kaidan, tugging his hand. “You’re right. It’s time we joined the fight.”

He mounted the steps to the platform, and the woman saw him coming. He smiled to her, gave her a nod, as if to agree with her vitriolic propaganda. And she clearly recognised him, her face lighting up as she addressed the crowd. 

“And ladies and gentlemen, we have a very special guest now, to address the need to maintain our society’s moral standards. A round of applause, please!”

She handed him the microphone, backing away while she clapped her hands enthusiastically, and Shepard turned to face the expectant crowd.

“A lot of you won’t know my face,” he said, “but all of you know my name. I am Commander Shepard of the SSV Normandy.” 

The crowd went silent, voices shushed, the only sound the faint clicking of cameras throughout the crowd. 

“I was the first human spectre. I fought in the Battle of the Citadel. And I led the assault against the reapers to take back Earth.”

The crowd burst into applause, cheers drowning out anything else he might have said, so he simply waited until they had settled down again. “You all know who I am,” he repeated. “But what a lot of you don’t know is that I am an alpha.”

There were gasps throughout the crowd, people looking shocked, hushed murmurs of disbelief. “I have always conducted myself with dignity and with the utmost self control, in light of my gender. Alphas have been brought into disrepute by the thoughtless actions of a few, and I have always wanted to uphold our reputation as one of diligence, respect, and discretion.”

Shepard waved Kaidan up beside him, and he could tell by the man’s face that he wasn’t sure what Shepard was up to. But he could also tell that he trusted him, was willing to stand beside him, no matter what.

“This is Major Alenko,” Shepard introduced him. “He served with me aboard the Normandy. He was instrumental in the planning and execution of the war against the reapers. It was an honor to serve with him, and a privilege to fight beside him.”

More applause. The crowd would never see this coming…

“Major Alenko is an omega. And throughout the time I have known him, he has acted with dignity and poise, in some of the most difficult circumstances a human being can live through.”

The beta spokeswoman was beaming, clearly thrilled at what she thought was an endorsement of her stance on sexual behaviour. But she was in for a hell of a shock.

“Major Kaidan Alenko,” Shepard went on, “is _my_ omega. And I am hopelessly and utterly in love with him.”

Without any further explanation, he turned to Kaidan and pulled him close, kissing him deeply and passionately, right in front of the crowd, in front of the reporters, in front of the entire scope of humanity watching on. 

The spokeswoman was in shock, white-faced, pointing at the pair of them, hands fluttering as she looked like she was about to faint.

The crowd burst into rapturous cheers, but Shepard didn’t see them, didn’t hear them. All he could see was Kaidan, grinning from ear to ear. “Come on,” he said to Kaidan, with a quick glance around. “Let’s get out of here. Before we’re mobbed.”

 

 

As it turned out, it was several hours before Kaidan and Shepard managed to break away from the rally. Everyone wanted to talk to them, wanted a statement, or a photograph, or an autograph. The woman from the stand they had gate-crashed had yelled obscenities at them from the stage, but Kaidan had ignored her completely, too caught up in the thrill of finally being able to stand beside his alpha, his lover, his friend, and tell the world that they were _together_.

And when they finally caught a shuttle-bus home, they decided to get off two stops early and walk the rest of the way. It was a full moon, the streets brightly lit with the pale light, and they walked with their arms around each other, Kaidan unable to keep the smile off his face.

“There’s going to be a shitstorm at Alliance HQ,” he pointed out at one point, but Shepard had merely shrugged. 

“I’ve broken worse regulations than this before.”

“Yeah, but they needed you to save the galaxy, back then. What do they need you for now?”

“PR?” Shepard suggested blithely, and Kaidan had laughed. And it had felt good, after spending too long worrying and hiding and pretending. He was in love with his alpha. And the entire world knew it. And it felt good.

But though neither Kaidan nor Shepard felt any apprehension about walking home in the dark, they were in for a reminder than not everyone shared their ability to look after themselves. 

They had just turned a corner into the street adjacent to their own when a startled cry caught Kaidan’s attention. It was a woman. A woman surrounded by a group of men.

“Shepard,” he said quietly, reaching for his gun. Shepard had spotted the group too, already drawing his weapon, scanning the street for any more surprises. When there were none, he headed straight for them. The woman was terrified, pleading with the men to let her leave.

“You smell good,” one of the men said to her, and it was immediately obvious what was happening. She was an omega. And she was going into her heat. Kaidan looked nervously at Shepard – he would fight the other alphas first, but once they were out of the way, it could easily be a case of out of the frying pan, into the fire. So he took it upon himself to get the woman as far away from them as possible. 

Shepard stepped up to the men, gun on display, his confidence showing in his easy swagger. “Evening, boys. How about you move along.”

The woman gasped in relief and immediately backed away through the gap in the group that Shepard had created. And Kaidan headed straight for her.

“Hey,” he got her attention. “You’re an omega, right?”

“How did you know?” she asked, shocked. 

“Because I’m one, too. Listen, we need to get you out of here. How far away do you live?”

“Two blocks. That way,” she pointed back in the direction he and Shepard had come.

“And do you have an alpha who can help you?” It was as polite as he could get, a sideways acknowledgement that he knew she was going into heat, and she blushed bright red. 

But thankfully, she kept her wits about her. “I’ve got a friend lined up. I’ve already called him, but the bus was late, and we got stuck in traffic. I should have been home an hour ago.”

“Then we need to get moving.”

Shepard was dealing with the alphas well, no shots had yet been fired, but they were starting to take notice of their target trying to leave, and he prayed Shepard would be able to see them off.

How he dealt with Shepard afterwards was another matter. He didn’t need a fight between him and the woman’s alpha, so he took her hand and led her away quickly.

They had gone a hundred metres or so when he heard footsteps behind them and turned to see Shepard jogging to catch up. 

“Not a problem,” he said calmly. “Just threaten to shoot people and they’re remarkably eager to cooperate.”

“Thank you,” the woman said, turning toward Shepard, but Kaidan pulled her away quickly. 

“Nope, you don’t want to go near him, either,” he said, and the woman gasped. 

“He’s yours, is he?” she asked in a whisper, instantly understanding that Shepard was an alpha, and Kaidan nodded. 

“And if we’re both real lucky, we’ll get out of this without anyone getting a broken arm. But don’t go near him. And for god’s sake, when we get to your house, go inside as quickly as you can.”

Kaidan kept an eye on Shepard as they walked, but he seemed intent on scanning the street, making sure the other alphas weren’t following them. And almost before he knew it, the woman was tugging him to a stop. 

“This is mine,” she said, pointing to an elegant two story house. But before either of them could say anything else, a tall, blond man leapt up from his seat on the front porch and dashed over to them.

“Kate! Where the hell have you been!” The man looked concerned, a frown lining his face… until he got a whiff of Kate’s pheromones. The change was instantaneous. And he turned to face Shepard. 

“Mine!” he growled, teeth bared, eyes flashing to yellow, and Kaidan braced himself for a fight…

“Then I suggest you get her inside,” Shepard told him sharply, and Kaidan watched in astonishment as the man did just that, grabbing Kate’s hand, dragging her away as he kept an eye on Shepard… until they were through the front door, and the lock clicked shut behind them.

Kaidan turned to Shepard… and was stunned to see that his eyes were their usual clear blue.

“Shepard?”

“Hm?”

“Um… are you okay?”

“Fine. Why?”

Kaidan glanced at the house again. “Why? Because you just let an omega in heat walk away as if nothing was happening.”

“She had an alpha,” Shepard said with disinterest… and then the surprise hit, his eyebrows shot up, then a frown settled on his face. “Wow… that’s… odd.”

“Did you even know she was in heat?” Kaidan asked, and Shepard snorted. 

“Of course. Anyone could smell that. She gave me a hard-on.” He took Kaidan’s hand and pressed it to his erection. “See? Feel that.”

“But you didn’t want to… go with her?” Kaidan asked, pulling his hand away. They were in public, after all.

Shepard thought about that. And then shrugged. “No.”

“Wow.”

“That’s strange, right?” Shepard asked, and Kaidan nodded. 

“Totally strange.” 

They started walking home again. 

“Do you think, maybe, there’s some kind of bonding that happens when an alpha and an omega are together for long enough?” Shepard asked. “That it… I don’t know… it blocks out the scent of other omegas, or something?”

“It’s a good theory,” Kaidan agreed. “Maybe we should open a discussion on the extranet. See if anyone else has experienced a similar thing.”

“Good idea,” Shepard said. Then he leaned closer and sniffed Kaidan’s neck. “Damn, you smell good.”

“You’re going to want sex when we get home, aren’t you?”

“Did you actually feel that erection when I stuck your hand on it. Cos it hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s still right here, waiting for you.” He took Kaidan’s hand and put it on his groin again.

Kaidan snatched his hand away. “And here I thought you were immune to other omegas.” He sighed, deliberately exaggerating the sound. “I guess I’ll just have to let you fuck me again. The things I do to keep you happy…”


	11. The Surprise

Shepard let himself into the apartment, relieved to be home after a long day. While Kaidan was coordinating rebuilding projects here in London, Shepard was overseeing the bigger picture, working with the Alliance on global resource allocation, channeling interplanetary minerals and alien technology into various national efforts around the globe. It was exhausting, but also very satisfying, seeing the work that was putting their battered and dented planet back together.

But this was odd, he thought, as he stepped in the kitchen.

A box sat on the table, wrapped in plain brown paper. It was rectangular, a little longer and narrower than a shoe box, addressed to ‘Mr. John Smith’. “Kaidan?” 

“Yep?” came a muffled reply from the bedroom. 

“What’s the box on the table for?”

“Oh, hey, don’t open it.” Kaidan came dashing out of the bedroom to check he hadn’t done so. “It’s a surprise.”

“Really? I like surprises.”

“Well, I hope you like this one,” Kaidan said … with a _smirk_. 

Shepard’s heart sped up. Kaidan and surprises, with a smirk like that, could only mean one thing – sex. And hell, yeah, he was totally up for that.

But Kaidan was not one to be rushed, and it was not until after they had finished dinner that he finally allowed Shepard to open the box. The box that had been sitting there, taunting him for the entire meal.

But even then, he wasn’t allowed to open it in the kitchen. No, he had to take it into the bedroom. Sit down on the bed. 

And _then_ he was allowed to open it.

He ripped off the paper and tossed the lid away… only to find whatever was inside hidden in a small mountain of packing foam. He dug his way through, and pulled out…

Holy shit…

“And may I introduce… the ‘Alpha Solo Pro’,” Kaidan said, pleased, but bashful as well.

“Good god, they actually made one.”

It was Shepard’s idea come to life, a sheath designed to allow alphas sexual release without an omega partner. But…

“Why do _I_ have one of these?” he asked, amused. “I already have a real live omega.”

“Yeah, but…” Kaidan sighed, a slight blush coloring his cheeks. And Shepard leaned forward to kiss him, because he was just adorable when he did that… “I was just thinking. Sooner or later, one of us is going to have to go away on assignment,” Kaidan pointed out pragmatically. “Maybe a visit to Arcturus, now that they’re rebuilding it, or a trip to America, to see one of their construction projects. And if I’m on my own, I can always… you know… relieve myself without a problem. But you can’t. And… I guess that bothered me. So I wanted to get you one of these. And maybe you’ll never use it,” he admitted, clearing the packaging off the bed. “But at least if you have one, and you want to, then you can. And that makes me feel less guilty about… not being there with you.”

And, god help him, it was the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for him. He felt tears prick his eyes suddenly, and, completely embarrassed, he pulled Kaidan into a tight hug, if only to hide his eyes while he blinked rapidly. “I love you,” he said into Kaidan’s ear, and felt his lover’s grip on him tighten. 

“I love you too,” Kaidan said, his voice muffled against Shepard’s shirt. 

And then he pulled back. “But I want to test this out. To make sure it really works. And if it doesn’t,” he said with an edge to his voice, “then I’m going to be writing a very angry letter to the manufacturer.”

Shepard laughed. And in all honesty, he would rather spend the evening inside his lover than inside this ‘device’. But Kaidan had a point, and he was quickly learning that he couldn’t deny him anything.

“Alright,” he agreed… but then another idea came back to him, something Kaidan had asked one sleepy evening several weeks ago. 

Was he really willing to try it?

And then, he thought, what the hell. Kaidan had made more than a handful of leaps of faith with him in the driver’s seat. It was time he gave a little in return. “But there’s something else I’ve been meaning to try, as well.”

“What’s that?” Kaidan was already stripping off his shirt, revealing toned muscles and golden skin, and Shepard made a noise of lusty appreciation, tossing the toy onto the bed to fill his hands with warm Kaidan, instead. 

“A couple of weeks ago, you asked if alphas ever bottom in bed,” he said, before he could lose his nerve.

And Kaidan’s eyes opened wide, his jaw dropping… even as his modest erection suddenly tented the front of his pants. “Are you serious?”

Was he? “Yeah.”

And then Kaidan leaned forward and kissed him, his hands cupping Shepard’s face, unable to express in words what he could with his body.

“You don’t have to. I mean… I want to, but it’s only because I thought you would enjoy it, and if you don’t, then that’s perfectly okay-“

“Shh,” Shepard hushed him, putting a finger over his lips. “I’m not guaranteeing I’ll like it. But I want to try.”

And the grin on Kaidan’s face was reward enough all by itself. “Okay.”

“Um… but I don’t… alphas don’t lubricate themselves, so-“

“I’ve got some lube,” Kaidan said quickly. “I got it for the… toy-thing… whatever it is. But it’ll work for this, too.”

Shepard nodded, feeling nervous and excited and aroused, and suddenly they were wearing far too many clothes. He tumbled Kaidan back onto the bed, and set about stripping his lover, and making him feel like the most cherished omega in the entire world…

Well, didn’t this feel odd, Shepard thought later, as he lay down on his stomach, feeling Kaidan settling in between his legs. His erection was pressed against his belly beneath him, and he wriggled, feeling it rub against the sheets. Actually, that felt kind of nice-

“Hold still,” Kaidan said, and Shepard heard the click of the cap on the tube of lube… and then a cold, wet finger touching his opening. And he flinched.

Predictably, Kaidan pulled back. “We don’t have to do this-“

“I want to do this,” Shepard insisted. “It’s just… cold.”

“It’ll warm up,” Kaidan muttered, putting his finger back again. And then he smeared the lube around Shepard’s entrance. “Tell me if this hurts,” he said, then pressed his finger slowly, carefully, into his body.

And didn’t that feel odd… Shepard tried to lie still, absorbing the foreign sensations. Kaidan hit something inside him suddenly, which had his muscles clenching, and he heard Kaidan chuckle. “Hit a sensitive spot?”

“Mmm…” He made an effort to relax again, then felt Kaidan press a second finger inside him. It felt much tighter than with just one… and he thought about the size of his cock, for a moment, then about the size of Kaidan’s opening. He’d never really seen the size difference as a problem before, but maybe…

“Does it hurt you when I enter you?” he asked, unable to help himself.

“Nope,” Kaidan replied nonchalantly. But then his hand suddenly stopped moving. “Is this hurting you?”

“It’s not _hurting_ , as such. But it does feel… odd. But I want you to keep going,” he added, preempting Kaidan’s inevitable offer to stop. And so he continued, pressing his fingers deeper, stretching them apart… and before he knew it, Kaidan was removing his fingers and slicking cold lube over his cock.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked one final time, and Shepard nodded. He coaxed his muscles to relax, felt the weight of Kaidan’s body over his own… and then something larger and thicker than his fingers was nudging at his entrance. There was pressure, not painful, but unusual, stretching him, and then something suddenly gave, and he suspected that the head of Kaidan’s cock had just slipped past his sphincter.

“Okay?” the man grunted, and Shepard managed a husky “yeah”. And then he was pressing deeper, and oh god, that felt big… He knew Kaidan wasn’t particularly large, even though he was perhaps larger than the average omega, but it shouldn’t have felt quite so big, and full, and _wide_.

Maybe, as Kaidan had said, alphas just weren’t built for this.

“How does that feel?” Kaidan asked, and Shepard was almost tempted to lie, to tell him it felt fantastic… but trust was never built on lies.

“It’s not bad,” he said, keeping his voice even. “But I don’t…”

“You don’t like it.”

“I don’t dislike it,” Shepard insisted, not wanting to disappoint him. “But it’s not really… It’s not… doing much for me…”

There was a moment of silence. And then Kaidan kissed him on the back of the neck… and withdrew.

Shepard turned around, worried that Kaidan would be disappointed. But he simply gave him an understanding smile, and reached for a tissue to wipe the lube off himself. 

“I’m sorry-“ Shepard started, but Kaidan cut him off.

“No. No apologies. I should be thanking you. You were willing to try something different. And I really appreciate that.” 

Shepard sat up, took Kaidan in his arms and kissed him deeply. “I love you. And I want to be inside you.”

“Mmm… I want that too… but I want you to try out this toy thing.”

“We can do both,” Shepard insisted. “I just want you to have a little fun first.”

Kaidan was on board with that, and a few minutes later he was straddling Shepard, rising up and down on his cock, his breath coming in quick, short gasps as he worked himself on his length. Shepard watched rapturously as Kaidan let his head fall back, eyes closed, mouth open as his hips worked… and then Shepard reached out and stroked Kaidan’s cock, felt him dig his fingers into Shepard’s legs… and then he was climaxing, his release coating Shepard’s abs, his passage squeezing his cock tightly…

But Shepard hadn’t come yet, true to his word about trying out the new device, and Kaidan caught his breath, grinned, then slid off him. “That was fantastic,” he said, reaching for the toy.

“So how do we do this?” Shepard asked. 

Kaidan reached for the tube of lube. “First, you need to get lubed up.” He did the honors, and Shepard thought he was perhaps a little too generous with the lube. Better too much than too little, he supposed, but damn, the stuff was cold! Then he handed Shepard the toy. “You just slide into it. See how it feels. But it said that if you’re about to come, you need to make sure you’re all the way inside it, otherwise the knotting bit doesn’t work.”

“It came with instructions?” Not the type of thing Shepard would normally ask, but having felt the pain of having his knot swell uncontrollably once, he was apprehensive about doing it again. He prayed that the manufacturer had tested this properly before they started selling it.

“Of course. A lot of alphas have never even had sex. They’ve got no idea how it’s supposed to work.”

“Hmm.” Well, no time like the present. Shepard positioned the thing over his cock and slid it down over himself slowly. And winced. “It’s cold.”

“Hmm… maybe we should suggest a self-warming mechanism.”

On first impressions, about half way in, he wasn’t thrilled with the results. Though it was tight enough, and he supposed it would warm up after a little while… he pushed it on the rest of the way…

And gasped, involuntarily thrusting his hips up, his back arching. Kaidan was alarmed.

“You okay? It doesn’t hurt, does it?”

Shepard shook his head, struggling for words. “No, it’s… It’s good… it’s got…”

He slid it partway off, then thrust home again. “Unnggghhh! Oh, yeah…”

“It’s got what?”

“They’ve put…” He just had to do that again, slid it off, thrust it back on. “The inside is textured,” he gasped out finally. “It’s got little ridges…” It was a unique experience, the answer to a life-long frustration to be able to control his own pleasure, to experience it whenever and however he chose, and he could definitely see this being popular with alphas… assuming the knotting system worked. “I’m going to come,” he blurted out, his voice strained. Felt Kaidan’s hand on his shoulder. 

“Do it. Let me see you come…”

He thrust himself into the thing one more time, pressed it firmly against his groin, and cried out as his orgasm spurted out of him. Then he held his breath, waiting for his knot to swell…

It felt different from being inside Kaidan. There was very little resistance at first, and he experienced a moment’s panic… then he felt the rubber tubing tighten, more pressure exerted as he swelled further… he shifted it around a little, making sure his knot was in the right place… and looked down to see how big it was going to let him get. And then it got tighter still, squeezing his knot, stopping the swelling even as blood continued to pump into it, just the way an omega’s body would have done. It felt… perfect, truth be told, the opening still tight so it couldn’t slip off. He collapsed back onto the bed, one hand still on the toy, just to make sure he couldn’t accidentally slide out of it, catching his breath.

“Does it work?” Kaidan asked anxiously, and Shepard nodded. 

“Yeah. Works really well, actually.” He glanced slyly at Kaidan. “Not as good as being inside you,” he added with a grin. “But yeah, it works.”

It was odd, being erect and swollen without being wrapped around his lover, and he missed the closeness of their post-orgasm snuggling. To be honest, he couldn’t really see himself using this very often. Without the warmth and intimacy of being with another person, it would just be a hollow imitation… but he was thrilled that it worked, none the less, for the sake of every sexually frustrated alpha out there, unable to see to their own needs without someone else’s cooperation. No one would ever have admitted it, not without sparking massive controversy, but since the self-determination act, the alphas had been just as constricted in their behaviour as the omegas had. 

And if they were going to have a cultural revolution, Shepard supposed, they might as well do it properly.

He tugged Kaidan down to kiss him, feeling slightly self-conscious about the weight of the thing hanging off his cock. Maybe, once his knot receded, they could have another round. Without the toy, this time…

 

Shepard’s omni-tool beeped, as he was standing in the kitchen making coffee, and he glanced at the ID on the incoming call. David. What did he want now?

“You never could stand me being right about anything, could you,” David said, the instant Shepard answered the call.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Shepard asked. On a good day, the man only ever made sense half the time.

“We’ve had this ghastly divide between alphas and omegas for decades, where never the twain shall meet and nobody’s allowed to have sex with anybody else… I know I said you couldn’t change the whole world,” David complained with a smirk. “But I didn’t think you’d go quite so far out of your way to prove me wrong…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow... that turned out absolutely nothing like I thought it would. But it was still heaps of fun to write. Thank you for reading it. I hope you enjoyed it.
> 
> I'm kind of all Shenkoed out now... it's hard to come up with another story to write about them when they've just had a HEA with fantastic sex thrown in... Maybe I'll write a cortega instead... I was going to write something with Shepard and Cortez, but since Shenko is my ultimate, absolute best OTP, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Thoughts, anyone?


End file.
